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SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES. 8vo, $z. so net. 
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SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES 

1884-1909 



SPEECHES 
AND ADDRESSES 



1884-1909 



BY 



HENRY CABOT LODGE 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

1909 



•I 



COPYRIGHT, 1S92 AND 1909, BY HENRY CABOT LODGE 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

Published November iqoq 



&G!,A2528SS 



NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION 

The first edition of this volume has been long out of 
print. This new edition contains selections from speeches 
delivered since 1892, when the first edition was published. 
All the speeches or extracts from speeches are given ex- 
actly as they were reported and printed, and therefore deal 
with facts, conditions, and public affairs as they were at 
the time of the delivery of each speech, and not as they 
are to-day. My only reason for this publication is given 
in the brief note of explanation and dedication prefixed 
to the first edition. 



From many words which passed with the 
hour of speech, I save these few, because I am, 
glad to have spoken them,, and because there are 
friends of mine who are kind eno\igh to wish 
to keep them. For myself, I take the pleasure 
of inscribing them to my friend Theodore Roose- 
velt, in token of personal affection, and of ad- 
miration for his work as a historian and for his 
services as a public man. 

Nahant, 1892. 



CONTENTS 

PAQB 

The Independent Spirit of the Puritans 1 

December 22, 1884, 

The Uses and Responsibilities of Leisure 11 

March 23, 1886. 

The Blue and the Gray 25 

June 17, 1887. 

The Puritans 31 

December 22, 1887. 
Harvard Collegte in Politics 37 

November 22, 1888. 
The Day we Celebrate 41 

December 21, 1888. 

International Copyright 49 

May 2, 1890. 
The Civilization of the Public School. A Reply . . 67 

January 13, 1890. 

Massachusetts 65 

October 23, 1891. 

Free Coinage of Silver 71 

March 23, 1892. 

The Tariff 85 

April 10, 1894. 

/ Our Duty toward Hawaii 155 

January 19 and 22, 1895. 

^ Naval Policy of the United States 179 

March 2, 1895. 

V The Monroe Doctrine 195 

December 30, 1895. 

The Restriction of Immigration 243 

March 16, 1896. 



X CONTENTS 

Spekch before the Republican State Convention of 

Massachusetts 267 

March 27, 1896. 

Speech at the Alumni Dinner, Harvard Commencement 289 
June, 1896. 

Intervention in Cuba 295 

April 13, 1898. 

The Philippine Islands 315 

March 7, 1900. 

Speech at Canton, Ohio, Notifying President McKinley 
OF HIS Second Nomination for the Presidency . . . 375 
July 12, 1900. 

Speech at the Inauguration of Henry S. Pritchett as 
President of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 
nology 383 

October 24, 1900. 

Speech before the Republican State Convention of 

Massachusetts 391 

April 10, 1908. 

Speech before the Republican National Convention at 

Chicago 405 

June 17, 1908. 

William B. Allison 417 

February 6, 1909. 

Abraham Lincoln 431 

February 12, 1909. 

New England and the Tariff 451 

June 19, 1909. 



THE INDEPENDENT SPIRIT OF THE 
PURITANS 

IN ANSWEE TO A TOAST AT THE DINNER OF THE NEW 

ENGLAND SOCIETY OF NEW YORK, 

DECEMBER 22, 1884 



THE INDEPENDENT SPIRIT OF THE 
PURITANS 



It is no slight trial for a Massachusetts man, especially 
for one of the younger generation, to be called upon to 
speak in this presence, where Choate and Webster spoke 
in bygone days and where the melodious echoes of their 
eloquence ever seem to linger. The shy and retiring dis- 
position so characteristic of the sons of New England, 
and which so often hinders their worldly success, becomes 
at such a moment reaUy oppressive. I can only escape 
from it by reflecting that this is one of the rare occasions 
when it is fair that we should all tlu-ow aside the native 
modesty of our race and utter boldly the favorable opin- 
ions which we reaUy entertain in regard to the Puritans 
and their descendants. 

For more than three quarters of a century your so- 
ciety has gathered here in the metropolis of the nation to 
commemorate the founding of that little group of common- 
wealths Imown as New England. The best thing we can 
say of that event is that it is one of the great facts in 
human progress which really deserves to be f reslily remem- 
bered. We are honestly and franldy proud to be the de- 
scendants of men who placed upon the roadside of history 
such a milestone as Plymouth Rock. Yet behind this 
pride there is a gentler but even stronger feeling, gentler 



4 THE INDEPENDENT SPIRIT OF THE PURITANS 

because it springs from love of home, stronger because its 
roots are entwined among our heart-strings. 

The lands to which Nature has been most prodigal are 
by no means those which are dearest to their children. 
New England has a harsh climate, a barren soil, a rough 
and stormy coast, and yet we love it, even with a love 
passing that of dwellers in more favored regions. Na- 
ture, niggard in material gifts, has yet been gracious 
there in all that appeals to the eye or touches the heart, 
and we love the Puritan land for mountain and river, for 
hillside and valley, for rugged cliffs and high sand-dunes, 
with the measureless sea ever murmuring beneath. Be- 
yond all and above all, we love New England for what is 
there enshrined : the graves of her honored dead ; the 
hallowed spots where great deeds were wrought ; the mem- 
ories of the men who gave their labors and their lives to 
the service of their country and mankind. 

The independent spirit of New England ! That was 
a chief quality of the Puritans, and the day we cele- 
brate marks the opening of the long struggle of our 
people for independence of foreign control and foreign 
influence. Tlie beginning was made in a period of intense 
religious ferment, and bore the scars of the time. Pilgrim 
and Puritan alike sought freedom to worship God, but it 
was freedom for themselves that they might worship God 
in their own fashion, in this new world, and not at all 
freedom of worship for any one who chanced that way 
with different opinions as to creeds and tenets. Indepen- 
dence, unfortunately, is not ahvays synonymous with a 
generous breadth and just liberality of opinion ; at least 
it was not in the seventeenth century. The Puritan set 
up his independent church, and then made every one come 
into it on pain of death or banishment, — punishments 



THE INDEPENDENT SPIRIT OF THE PURITANS 5 

wliicli he inflicted upon all recalcitrants with characteristic 
vigor and promptness. Yet whatever we may think of his 
methods, he achieved his religious independence, and his 
church was his own, and not that of some one else across 
the water. 

That same Puritan spirit of hostility to foreign control 
and foreiirn influence has traveled far and fast since then. 
Its path has lain across the battlefields of the Revolution 
and over the bloody decks of fighting frigates in the war 
of 1812, but its mission and its work have ever been the 
same. The last vestiges of foreign influence upon our 
habits of thought seemed to vanish in the battle smoke of 
the civil war, which destroyed our previous morbid sensi- 
bility to foreign opinion, and left us 

" Self-school'd, seLf-scaun'd, self-honored, self-secure." 

Yet although much was then accomplished, all was not 
done. The imitative colonial propensity of mind still 
dwells with us. There is still work for the Puritan spirit 
which would go its own way and think its own thoughts. 
It is not altogether our own church, even now in the 
world of ideas ; in art, and literature, and among certain 
elements of our society. Who, for instance, has not heard 
the profound saying that in this coimtry nature does not 
lend itself to art ? Have we not, then, the glories of 
morning and of evening, the mists of dawn, the radiance 
of midday, "the lightning of the noontide ocean," the 
infinite beauties of sea and sky, of river and moimtain ? 
When nature does not lend itself to art it is because there 
is no art able to borrow. Let the right men come in the 
right spirit and they will have no trouble with nature. 

Thanks to the ever-increasing number of goodly work- 
ers, the spirit of dependence on foreign ideas is fast dis- 



6 THE INDEPENDENT SPIRIT OF THE PURITANS 

appearing from our literature. Yet I took up an Anglo- 
American or " International " volume the other day, and 
the burden of the first few pages seemed to be that one 
could not sketch Fifty-third Street. That is, indeed, a 
most appalling thought. But, after all, who wants to 
sketch Fifty-third Street? We know it is not as pic- 
turesque as the Grand Canal of Venice, and we also 
know that these things are but trappings in literatm-e. 
The conditions of French or English life are not ours, 
and are false for us. Our literature must accept, and is 
accepting in the right spirit, our own conditions, and it will 
find, as indeed it has found, the best inspiration at the 
true source, ever old and ever new, — the wellspring of 
human passion and human emotion, as fidl of life here 
to-day as when Homer sang of Helen's beauty and Achil- 
les' wrath. 

Most of all, however, do we need the Puritan spirit in 
certain elements of our society. The number of men to 
whom inherited fortune brings education and command of 
time without effort on their part is ever increasing. Do 
they avail themselves fvilly of their opportunities, or are 
they too apt to pass their days in a vain search for distrac- 
tions and a mournful regret that this country is not some 
other country ? I am happy to believe that this is the very 
worst country in the world for an idler. But to the man 
with health, wealth, education, and unlimited command of 
time, — in other words, to the man who owes most to his 
country, — here are better opportunities and higher duties 
than anywhere else. I am not going to make the familiar 
plea that young men of education and wealth ought to 
perform their obvious duties as citizens. There has been 
plenty of sovind argument and good advice offered on 
that score, and the proposition is well understood. 



THE INDEPENDENT SPIRIT OF THE PURITANS 7 

But this is not all. In this question lie deeper mean- 
ings. There is a very real danger that the growth of 
wealth here may end by producing a class grounded on 
mere money, and thence class feeling, a thing noxious, 
deadly, and utterly wi-ong in this country. It lies with 
the men of whom I have spoken to strangle this serpent 
at its birth. They cannot do this, however, unless they 
are in full sympathy with the American people and with 
American ideas ; and to this sympathy they can never 
come by living in Europe, by mimicking foreign habits, 
by haunting well-appointed clubs, or by studying our pub- 
lic affairs in the columns of a Saturday Review, home- 
made or imported. They must go to work. Philanthropy 
and public affairs need such men, because they can give 
what others cannot spare — time and money. There is a 
great field in politics. Before they enter in, let them 
take to themselves not only the high and self-respecting 
spirit of the Puritan, but also his fighting qualities, his 
dogged persistence, and another attribute for which he 
was not so conspicuous, — plenty of good nature. They 
will need all these weapons, for it is no primrose path. 
They must be prepared to meet not only the usual abuse, 
but also much and serious prejudice. They must not 
mind defeats and hard work. If their conception of duty 
differs from that of their accustomed friends and aUies, 
they must not be surprised if some of those very friends 
mete out to them the harshest measure and deal them the 
sharpest blows. 

Yet if they hold fast to two principles, — I care not 
under what party banner they serve, — if they will fear- 
lessly do what in their own eyes and before their own con- 
science is right and brave and honorable, if, like the Puri- 
tans, they will do the work which comes to their hands 



8 THE INDEPENDENT SPIRIT OF THE PURITANS 

with all their might, they will win the best success. They 
will win the regard and confidence of large bodies of their 
fellow-citizens, of those men by whose strong hands and 
active brains the republic is ever being raised higher, and 
this regard and confidence are the best and most valuable 
possessions that any American can ever hope to have. 
Let such men, then, go into politics, because they can 
give their time and energy to it, because they can do work 
worth doing, and, above all, because they will thus be- 
come truer and better Americans. 

I believe, Mr. President, that I am coming very close to 
what is called " Americanism," but of " Americanism " of 
the right sort we cannot have too much. Mere vaporing 
and boasting become a nation as little as a man. But 
honest, outspoken pride and faith in our country are 
infinitely better and more to be respected than the culti- 
vated reserve which sets it down as ill-bred and in bad 
taste ever to refer to our country except by way of depre- 
ciation, criticism, or general negation. The Puritans did 
great work in the world because they believed most fer- 
vently in their cause, their country, and themselves. It is 
the same to-day. Without belief of this sort nothing 
worth doing is ever done. 

We have a right to be proud of our vast material suc- 
cess, our national power and dignity, our advancing civi- 
lization, carrying freedom and education in its train. Most 
of all may we be proud of the magnanimity displayed by 
the American people at the close of the civil war, a 
noble generosity unparalleled in the history of nations. 
But to count our wealth and tell our numbers and re- 
hearse our great deeds simply to boast of them is useless 
enough. We have a right to do it only when we listen to 
the solemn undertone which brings the message of great 



THE INDEPENDENT SPIRIT OF THE PURITANS 9 

responsibilities, — responsibilities far greater than the ordi- 
nary political and financial issues which are sure to find, 
sooner or later, a right settlement. Social questions are , 
the questions of the present and the future for the Amer- 
ican people. The race for wealth has opened a broad gap 
between rich and poor. There are thousands at your 
gates toiling from sunrise to sunset to keep body and soul 
together, and the struggle is a hard and bitter one. The 
idle, the worthless, and the criminal form but a small 
element of the community ; but there is a vast body of 
honest. God-fearing working men and women whose yoke 
is not easy and whose burden is far from light. 

The destiny of the republic is in the weKare of its 
worldng men and women. We cannot push their troubles 
and cares into the background, and trust that all will 
come riffht in the end. Let us look to it that differences 
and inequalities of condition do not widen into ruin. It 
is most true that these differences cannot be rooted out, ' 
but they can be modified, and a great deal can be done 
to secure to every man the share of well-being and happi- 
ness to which his honesty, thrift, and ability entitle him. 
Legislation cannot change humanity nor alter the decrees 
of nature, but it can help the solution of these grave 
problems. 

Practical measures are plentiful enough : the hours of 
labor; emigration from our over-crowded cities to the 
lands of the West ; economical and energetic municipal 
governments ; proper building laws ; the rigid prevention 
of adulteration in the great staples of food ; wise regida- 
tion of the railroads and other great corporations ; the extir- 
pation of race and class in politics ; above all, every effort 
to secure to labor its fair and full share of the profits 
earned by the combination of labor and capital. Here 



10 THE INDEPENDENT SPIRIT OF THE PURITANS 

are matters of great pitli and moment, more important, 
more essential, more pressing, than any others. They 
must be met ; they cannot be shirked or evaded. 

The past is across the water ; the future is here in our 
keeping. We can do all that can be done to solve the 
social problems and fulfill the hopes of mankind. Failure 
would be a disaster unequaled in history. The first step 
to success is pride of country, simple, honest, frank, and 
ever present, and this is the Americanism that I would 
have. If we have this pride and faith we shall appreci- 
ate our mighty responsibilities. Then if we live up to 
them we shall keep the words " an American citizen " 
what they now are, — the noblest title any man can bear. 



THE USES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF 

LEISURE 

AN ADDKESS TO THE STUDENTS OP HARVAKD COLLEGE, 

MAKCH 23, 1886 



THE USES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF 

LEISURE 



I REMEMBER hearing Mr. LoweU say in his most charm- 
ing way, some years since, of his friend Edmund Quincy, 
that " early in life Mr. Quincy devoted himself to the 
arduous profession of gentleman, and certainly in the 
practice of it he achieved as great success as is possible 
in a country where we have business in the blood, and 
where leisure is looked down upon as the larceny of time 
that belongs to other people." The theory of life in vogue 
in the United States, and especially in New England, when 
Mr. Quincy was yoimg, and, indeed, imtil witliin a few 
years, was in some ways a very peculiar one. It was 
firmly believed that any young man who did not have 
some regidar occupation involving money - getting was 
doomed to perdition. Literature was barely tolerated ; 
the learned professions, of course, passed muster ; but busi- 
ness was much preferred. Any one who did not conform 
his life to the habits of a trading community was assmned 
to be totally idle, and in consequence thereof to be draw- 
ing his amusement from the source pointed out by Dr. 
Watts. What a fine refutation to this doctrine is the 
life of Mr. Quincy hunself ! A graceful wi'iter of some 
very charming stories with the perfume of the eighteenth 
century sweet upon them, the author of one of the very 
best of American biographies, he holds a secure and hon- 



14 THE USES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF LEISURE 

orable place in our literature. An early Abolitionist, lie 
put his name, his talents, and his character at the ser- 
vice of a despised cause, and never in the hour of its tri- 
umph asked or wished reward. By his brilKant corre- 
spondence in the New York " Tribune," covering many 
years, and by his witty and effective speech, he helped to 
fight the anti-slavery battle. No account of our literature 
is complete without him, and no history of the great 
movement which resulted in the abolition of slavery can 
be written without ample mention of his name and ser- 
vices. The busy money-getters, the worthy citizens who 
shrugged their shoulders and disapproved him and his 
ways, are forgotten, but the gentleman of leisure is re- 
membered, and holds an honorable place in the literature 
and the history of his country. It is a noble record of 
well-doing, one that any man might be content to leave 
as a heritage to his children. What, then, was the 
secret ? He used his leisure, that was all. Leisure well 
employed is of high worth. Leisure unemployed is mere 
idleness and helpless drifting along the stream of life. 
The disapprobation of men of leisure which was common 
in New England in Mr. Quincy's youth erred only be- 
cause it was narrow, and could not believe that a man 
was usefully employed unless he worked in a few well- 
recognized and accepted ways. 

It is easy enough to show the error of the old doctrine, 
and yet it would be quite as great an error to condemn it. 
Like most Puritan theories, it has at bottom a sound and 
vital principle, and the danger to-day of forgetting that 
underlying principle of action is far greater than of our 
being warped by its too rigid application. A mere idler 
is a very poor creature. Leisure is nothing in itself. It 
is only an opportunity, and, like other opportunities, if 
wasted or abused, it is harmful and often fatal. 



THE USES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF LEISURE 15 

The increase of wealth in this country and the multipli- 
cation of great fortunes has produced a corresponding 
increase in the ntmiber of young men who, fortunately or 
unf ortimately, are in fact or in prospect the heirs of large 
estates. Money in itself is worthless, and gets value only 
through its purchasing power. When its real purpose is 
misunderstood it is a perilous possession, and the stern 
necessity of earning a living has proved a strong safeguard 
and help to many men. Given the command of time and 
of one's own life, and there is nothing so easy as to let the 
years slip by in indecision and infirmity of purpose until 
it is too late. The worst outcome, of course, is when a 
man uses his great opportimity for nothing but selfish 
and sensual gratification, with no result but evil to him- 
self and to others. Far better than this cumberer of the 
ground is the man who, if he does not use his intellec- 
tual powers, at least employs his physical gifts in some 
way. A taste, an amusement, a pursuit of any kind, 
even if only for amusement's sake, is infinitely better 
than nothing, or than mere sensual enjoyment. It is 
manly and wholesome to ride boldly and well, to be a 
good shot, a successful yachtsman, an intelligent and en- 
terprising traveler. These things are good in themselves, 
and it may be fairly said that the bold rider, the good 
shot, the skillful seaman, if he loves these sports for 
their own sake, has in him, in all probability, the stuff of 
which a soldier or sailor may be made in the hour of the 
country's need. 

Then, again, there are the men of leisure who devote 
themselves to some intellectual pursuit, but without any 
idea of earning money or of any practical result. Such 
men sometimes do valuable work, but they nevertheless 
remain amateurs all their lives. They may be credited 



16 THE USES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF LEISURE 

with an honest effort for something better than idleness 
or physical amusement, sometimes with fruitful work, but 
there the commendation ceases. The first thing for a 
man of leisure to do, who really wishes to count in his 
day and generation, is to avoid being an amateur. In 
other words, the first tiling necessary is to acquire the 
habit of real work, and this can be done well only by 
working to obtain money, reputation, or some other solid 
value. You can only find out if your work is really 
worth doing, is in truth current gold, by bringing it to 
the touchstone of competition and an open market. 

The essential thing at the start is the habit of tliinking 
and working. The subject of work or thought is not es- 
sential, for, the habit once obtained, a man will soon find 
that for which he is best fitted. Even at this very first 
step we are likely to be met with objections, and perhaps 
it is as well to clear them from the path at once. 

There is one theory which says that life at best is short 
and evil ; that we are not responsible for it, and that as 
at our utmost we can effect so little, the correct course is 
to get as much pleasure out of existence as possible. Ac- 
cepting tliis statement, the next proposition is that work 
or labor is an evil, and should be dispensed with. There 
is a conclusive answer to this doctrine, even if we take 
pleasure only as a test, for there is no man so discontented 
as the idle man, and imless he is witless, the older he 
grows the more bitter and unhappy he becomes. The 
only charm of a holiday comes from working before and 
after it. Your idle man has no holidays ; nothing but 
"the set gray life and apathetic end." It is not easy at 
the outset to labor with no taskmaster except one's own de- 
termination, but the effort grows steadily and rapidly less, 
so that in a very short time work becomes a necessity, and 



THE USES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF LEISURE 17 

brings more solid and lasting pleasure and more interest 
than anything else human ingenuity can devise for our 
diversion. 

The next question is as to the particular work to which 
a man of leisure can best devote his time and his energies. 
I have known men who, without any spur from necessity, 
have addressed themselves to the professions or to busi- 
ness, and have earned there both money and distinction. 
It is needless to say that these men deserve the very high- 
est credit and the entire respect of all who know them. 
At the same time, while we may not criticise such men, it 
is impossible to doubt that they might be more effective 
in other fields than those which are primarily and essen- 
tially money getting. 

It is better for the man of leisure in learning to work 
and think, or when he has acquired that most precious 
education, to turn to the fields where men are needed who 
can labor, without pecuniary profit, for the public benefit. 
This is not only proper abstractly, but it is a duty and an 
obligation. Every gentleman pays his debts just as he 
tells the truth and keeps faith. We all owe a debt to 
our country, and none so large a debt as the man of lei- 
sure. That those who have gone before him have been 
enabled to accumidate property and leave it to him in 
secure enjoyment, is due to the wise laws and solid insti- 
tutions of his State and country, and to the sound and 
honest character of the American people. That we have 
a country at all is due to those who fought for her. To 
them we owe a debt we can only try to pay by devotion to 
the country that we enjoy, and which they saved. 

The modes of working for the public are many. The 
first which suggests itself is literature, but there, as every- 
where else, the essential preliminary is to learn to work 



18 THE USES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF LEISURE 

practically. No man ought to begin by publishing at his 
own expense. It is far better to try at the doors of the 
newspapers, the magazines, or the publishers, imtil you 
can command a market for your wi-itings, for the only 
sure way to make a writer that I know is to have him 
enter the field of competition. When he can hold his 
own with other men, then it will be time to publish, if he 
chooses, at his own expense, work of value to the world, 
but which the world could get in no other way. 

There is a still larger opportunity in the directions of 
public education and public charities. In all these there 
is a vast and growing demand for intelligent work, and 
for the most part it is only possible to men who can com- 
mand their own time. A man can win wide reputation 
in these departments, and render incalculable service to 
his fellow-men. 

It only remains now to speak of politics. Let every 
man give of his leisure, be it more or less, to politics ; for 
it is simply good citizenship to do so. Discard at the 
outset the wretched habit which is far too prevalent in 
this comitry, and particidarly, I am sorry to say, among 
highly educated persons, of regarding aU men who are 
much in politics with suspicion, and of using the word 
" politician " as an uncomplimentary epithet, and usually 
with a sneer. You neither help nor hurt the politician by 
so doing, but you hurt your coimtry and lower her repu- 
tation. There is nothing, indeed, which does more to in- 
jure politics and the public business than to assume that 
a man who enters them is in some way lowered by so 
doing. The calling ought to be and is an honorable one, 
and we should all seek to honor and elevate, not to decry 
it. Politics is a wide field, but it is a very practical one, 
and the amateur is not only singularly out of place there, 



THE USES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF LEISURE 19 

but is especially apt to do harm by mistaken efforts to do 
good. Take liold of politics as you wovdd of any other 
business, honorably and respectably, but take hold hard. 
Go to the polls, for example, and work for the man whom 
you want to see elected, and get your friends to do the 
same. If you prefer to reach political questions by voice 
or pen, do it in these ways, but let me suggest that you 
first inform yourself about politics and politicians, for 
politics and public questions are exceedingly difficult, and 
educated men are sometimes as marvelously ignorant upon 
these subjects as they are ready in judgment and condem- 
nation concerning them. 

There is only one other point that I will touch upon as 
to politics. Work for the highest and best measures 
always. "When the question is between right and wrong, 
work for what you beheve to be right without yielding a 
jot. In such questions no compromise is possible. For- 
tunately for us, however, great moral questions like slavery 
are extremely rare in pohtics. Most public questions, 
grave and important as many of them are, are not moral 
questions at all, and form no part of the everlasting con- 
flict between good and evil, between right and wrong. 
Do not fall into the cant of treating public questions as 
moral questions when they are not so. There is a tempta- 
tion to a certain class of minds to do this, because, the 
morality of the question being granted and they being in 
the right themselves, it is then possible to look down upon 
their opponents and call their enemies wicked. This is 
cant of the worst kind. All cant and hypocrisy are 
mean and noxious, and none more so than the pohtical 
varieties. 

Stand for the right, then, against the wrong always, 
but where there is no moral question involved do not, by 



20 THE USES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF LEISURE 

insisting on tlie unattainable, lose everything. Because, 
for example, the civil service act of 1883 falls far short 
of perfection and completeness, should we therefore reject 
it ? That would be folly. Let us take it as a first great 
step toward our goal of removing routine offices from 
politics. The political history of the English-speaking 
race is in truth a history of legislative compromises. 
When compi'omises have not been made with wrong, they 
have been the stepping stones in the great march of our 
civilization. They mark the line between the people who 
are ever moving forward to higher thiugs and those who, 
insisting on the highest at once, never advance, but stand 
shrieldng with helpless confusion, always in one place. 

I have touched very cursorily and unsatisfactorily on 
some of the fields of public usef idness open to men whose 
time is wholly at their own disposal, and open in some 
measure to others as well. In conclusion, I want to say a 
word on two points which seem to me of great impor- 
tance, and which apply to all alike. Be in sympathy 
with yoixr age and country. It is easier to get out of sym- 
pathy with the movements of the time than you think. 
What every man must work with and understand are the 
forces about him. If he does not, his usefulness is crip- 
pled. To be out of sympathy with your country and 
with American ideas is a grievous fault, to be shunned at 
all hazards. If a man fails to respect himself no one 
will respect him, and if he does not love and honor his 
country he will deserve nothing but contempt. The most 
utterly despicable of all things is the Anglomania which 
prevails in certain quarters. It should be impossible here, 
for no men who have been brought up beneath the shad- 
ows of Memorial Hall, and who have felt the influence 
that descends from its silent tablets, ought to be anything 



THE USES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF LEISURE 21 

but ardent Americans. All I would say is, make your 
Americanism and your patriotism living and active forces 
in your daily life. 

The other point which I wish to make is in regard to a 
danger which I think is in some measure peculiar to Har- 
vard. I mean the tendency to be merely negative and 
critical. This arises, in part at least, from a dread of be- 
coming ridiculous by over-enthusiasm, and from the feel- 
ing that it is " in better form "to be exceedingly quiet 
and reticent. But it will not do to confine one's self in 
life to the purely critical attitude, for it leads to nothing. 
It may be able to destroy, it can never create. It frequently 
makes a man sour, envious, and spiteful ; it never makes 
him helpfvd, generous, brave, and the doer of great deeds. 
Moreover, if a man contents himself with criticism and 
negation, he is hkely to become not only narrow and arro- 
gant, but ineffective. To be well balanced and efficient 
we must see the good as well as the evil in both men and 
things. It is comparatively easy to stand by and criticise 
the men who are struggling, for instance, in the stream of 
politics, but a far better thing is to plunge in yourself and 
try to do something, and to bring some definite thing to 
pass. If you attain to nothing more, you will at least be a 
wiser and better critic, and therefore far more weighty 
and influential, because more sjnnpathetic and more 
intelligent. 

Let me illustrate once more, by an example, what I 
mean by positiveness and enthusiasm and by disregard 
of self and of the weak dread of being ridiculous. You 
have all, no doubt, read the novels and sketches of JVIr. 
Cable. You know that he is one of the most charming 
of our yoimger writers. Mr. Cable has lately turned 
aside to enter another field, and to do what in him lies to 



22 THE USES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF LEISURE 

right what he believed to be a wrong. I suppose that 
every one who listens to me has read the two essays enti- 
tled " The Freedman's Case in Equity " and " The Silent 
South." The modest volume which contains them is, I 
beheve, an epoch-making book. Not now, perhaps, but in 
the days that are yet to be. These essays are written of 
course admirably, with literary skiU and great force. The 
words, however, are not so much ; the great fact is the 
man who uttered them. It is the act that will live, and 
which is destined to mark a stage in our national devel- 
opment. Mr. Cable is the grandson and son of a slave- 
holder. He was a soldier in the Confederate army. He 
is a Southerner through and thi-ough, with all the tradi- 
tions and prejudices of the South. He saw before him a 
despised race just released from slavery ; he saw that the 
condition of that race presented a mighty problem, vital 
to the welfare of a large part of our common country. 
He believed that this problem was one which legislation 
could not reach, but which public opinion in the South 
could alone deal with. He studied the question, and 
came to the conclusion that the treatment of the negro 
was neither right nor honest. How easy it was to remain 
silent ! He had everything to gain and nothing to lose 
by silence, and he thereupon spoke out. He faced hos- 
tility, ostracism almost, at the South, and indifference at 
the North. He was assailed, abused, and sneered at, but 
he has never been answered, and he never will be an- 
swered until he obtains from the tribunal to which he ap- 
pealed, from Southern opinion itseH, the inevitable ver- 
dict that he is right and that the wrong shall be redressed. 
It was a great and noble act. It was positive and not 
negative. Mr. Cable will be remembered for those essays 
while we have a history, and long after the very names of 



THE USES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF LEISURE 23 

those who stood coldly by and criticised him have been 
forgotten. 

It is by such men that the work of the world is done, 
and every man can do his part, be it great or small, if he 
rests on the same everlasting principle. The errors, the 
mistakes, the failures, the ridicule, will be forgotten, but 
the central, animating thought, manly, robust, and gen- 
erous, will survive. Be in sympathy with your time and 
your country. Be positive, not negative. Live the life of 
your time, if you woidd live at all. These are generali- 
ties, I Iniow, but they mean everything to me because 
they define a mental and moral attitude which is essential 
to virility and well doing. Let that attitude be right, 
and the man upon whom fortune has bestowed the gift of 
leisure will become, as he ought, one of the most useful 
and one of the busiest of men. If he is this, the rest 
will care for itself. 

" In light things 
Prove thou the arms thou long'st to glorify. 
Nor fear to work up from the lowest ranks, 
Whence come great nature's captains. And high deeds 
Haunt not the fringy edges of the fight, 
But the pell-mell of men." 



THE BLUE AND THE GRAY 

IN ANSWER TO A TOAST AT THE DINNEE TO ROBERT 

E. LEE CAMP OF CONFEDERATE VETERANS, 

IN FANEUIL HALL, JUNE 17, 1887 



THE BLUE AND THE GRAY 



To such a toast, sir, it would seem perhaps most fit- 
ting that one of those should respond who was a part of 
the great event which it recalls. Yet, after all, on an 
occasion like this, it may not be amiss to caU upon one 
who belongs to a generation to whom the Rebellion is 
little more than history, and who, however insufficiently, 
represents the feelings of that and the succeeding genera- 
tions as to our great civil war. I was a boy ten years old 
when the troops marched away to defend Washington, 
and my personal knowledge of that time is confined to 
a few broken but vivid memories. I saw the troops, 
month after month, pour through the streets of Boston. I 
saw Shaw go forth at the head of his black regiment, 
and Bartlett, shattered in body but dauntless in soul, ride 
by to carry what was left of him once more to the battle- 
fields of the repubhc. I saw Andrew, standing bare- 
headed on the steps of the State House, bid the men 
godspeed. I cannot remember the words he said, but I 
can never forget the fervid eloquence which brought tears 
to the eyes and fire to the hearts of aU who listened. I 
understood but dimly the awful meaning of these events. 
To my boyish mind one thing alone was clear, that the sol- 
diers as they marched past were all, in that supreme 
hour, heroes and patriots. Amid many changes that simple 
belief of boyhood has never altered. The gratitude which 



28 THE BLUE AND THE GRAY 

I felt then I confess to to-day more strongly than ever. 
But other feelings have in the progress of time altered 
much. I have learned, and others of my generation as 
they came to man's estate have learned, what the war 
really meant, and they have also learned to know and to 
do justice to the men who fought the war upon the other 
side. 

I do not stand up in this presence to indulge in any 
mock sentimentality. You brave men who wore the gray 
would be the first to hold me or any other son of the 
North in just contempt if I should say that, now it was 
all over, I thought the North was wrong and the result of 
the war a mistake, and that I was prepared to suppress 
my political opinions. I believe most profoundly that 
the war on our side was eternally right, that our victory 
was the salvation of the country, and that the results of 
the war were of infmite benefit to both North and South. 
But however we differed, or still differ, as to the causes 
for which we fought then, we accept them as settled, com- 
mit them to history, and fight over them no more. To 
the men who fought the battles of the Confederacy we 
hold out our hands freely, frankly, and gladly. To cour- 
age and faith wherever shown we bow in homage with 
uncovered heads. We respect and honor the gallantry 
and valor of the brave men who fought against us, and 
who gave their lives and shed their blood in defense of 
what they believed to be right. We rejoice that the 
famous general whose name is borne upon your banner 
was one of the greatest soldiers of modern times, because 
he, too, was an American. We have no bitter memories 
to revive, no reproaches to utter. Reconciliation is not 
to be sought, because it exists already. Differ in politics 
and in a thousand other ways we must and shall in all 



THE BLUE AND THE GRAY 29 

good-nature, but let us never differ with each other on 
sectional or State lines, by race or creed. 

We welcome you, soldiers of Virginia, as others more 
eloquent than I have said, to New England. We wel- 
come you to old Massachusetts. We welcome you to Bos- 
ton and to Faneuil Hall. In your presence here, and at the 
soimd of your voices beneath this historic roof, the years 
roll back and we see the figure and hear again the ring- 
ing tones of your great orator, Patrick Henry, declaring 
to the first Continental Congress, "The distinctions be- 
tween Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New 
Englanders are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an 
American." A distinguished Frenchman, as he stood 
among the graves at Arlington, said, " Only a great people 
is capable of a gi-eat civil war." Let us add with thank- 
ful hearts that only a great people is capable of a great 
reconciliation. Side by side, Virginia and Massachusetts 
led the colonies into the War for Independence. Side by 
side they founded the government of the United States. 
Morgan and Greene, Lee and Knox, Moultrie and Pres- 
cott, men of the South and men of the North, fought 
shoulder to shoulder, and wore the same imiform of buff 
and blue, — the imiform of Washington. 

Your presence here brings back their noble memories, 
it breathes the spirit of concord, and unites with so many 
other voices in the irrevocable message of union and good- 
will. Mere sentiment all this, some may say. But it is 
sentunent, true sentiment, that has moved the world. 
Sentiment fought the war, and sentiment has reimited us. 
When the war closed, it was proposed in the newspapers 
and elsewhere to give Governor Andrew, who had sacri- 
ficed health and strength and property in his public du- 
ties, some immediately lucrative office, like the collector- 



30 THE BLUE AND THE GRAY 

ship of the port of Boston. A friend asked him if he 
would take such a place. " No," said he ; "I have stood 
as high priest between the horns of the altar, and I have 
poured out upon it the best blood of Massachusetts, and 
I cannot take money for that." Mere sentiment truly, 
but the sentiment which ennobles and uplifts mankind. 
It is sentiment which so hallows a bit of torn, stained 
bunting, that men go gladly to their deaths to save it. 
So I say that the sentiment manifested by your presence 
here, brethren of Virginia, sitting side by side with those 
who wore the blue, has a far-reaching and gracious in- 
fluence, of more value than many practical things. It 
tells us that these two grand old commonwealths, parted 
in the shock of the Civil War, are once more side by side 
as in the days of the Revolution, never to part again. It 
tells us that the sons of Virginia and Massachusetts, if 
war shoidd break again upon the country, will, as in the 
olden days, stand once more shoulder to shoulder, with no 
distinction in the colors that they wear. It is fraught 
with tidings of peace on earth, and you may read its 
meaning in the words on yonder picture, " Liberty and 
Union, now and forever, one and inseparable." 



THE PURITANS 

IN ANSWER TO A TOAST AT THE DINNER OF THE NEW 

ENGLAND SOCIETY OF PHILADELPHIA, 

DECEMBER 22, 1887 



THE PURITANS 



This is the day that New England men everywhere set 
apart as sacred to the memory of those who foimded the 
brave old commonwealths where they were born, and which, 
however far they may have wandered, they never cease to 
love. In so doing they only obey a most deeply-rooted 
instinct of human nature. One of the earliest forms of 
religion to which primitive man turned for consolation 
and support was ancestor worship. Indeed, it is but the 
other day that Japan disestablished Shintoism, the official 
religion of the state, an ancestor worship which for ages 
has maintained itseK in the face of newer faiths and more 
popular creeds. The religious form of ancestor worship 
has departed long since from our race, but the sentiment 
remains. The Chinaman, who reverses all our habits, has 
his ancestors ennobled when he himself arrives at dis- 
tinction. The people of the Western world turn their 
ancestors to better account, by using them as an argu- 
ment in favor of benefits to be conferred upon themselves. 
To us in this country, where all hereditary distinctions 
have been from the outset wisely abolished, ancestors are 
chiefly useful as furnishing pleasant opportunities of this 
kind for mental and moral improvement. To the New 
England er they have an especial value, because his retir- 
ing and modest nature makes him unwilling to assert 
himself or sing his own praises. His diffidence, there- 
fore, finds a welcome shelter in doing justice to ancestral 



34 THE PURITANS. 

deeds and virtues, and thus he is able to shine with the 
mild refulgence of a reflected light. 

Nothing in this way could be more suggestive than the 
name of the famous old county which you have coupled 
with mine. In Essex County the Puritan foimded his 
first town and set up his first church. As the Puritans of 
Essex were first in order of settlement, so were they 
always the most extreme representatives of the day in 
politics or religion. It was the stern old Essex Puritan 
John Endicott who cut St. George's cross from the Eng- 
lish flag because it savored of idolatry. It was an Essex 
clergyman who was cast out of his pulpit because he led 
his townsmen in a refusal to pay illegal impositions to 
Andros, as John Hampden had refused ship money to 
Charles I. It was in Essex that resistance was organized 
to the domination of the capital ; and it was in Essex, too, 
that the dark and morbid side of Puritan faith found its 
last expression in the madness of the witchcraft trials. 
So when we speak of Essex County the name brings to 
us aU that is most characteristic and most essential in 
Pui'itanism. 

The time has come when we ought to judge the Puritan 
fairly, and see him as he really was, — not tricked out in 
virtues which he never would have claimed, nor bedaubed 
with vices of which he was entirely innocent. There is 
no lack of opportunity for fit judgment. The Puritan 
did not creep along the byways of his time. He stands 
out in history as distinctly as a Greek temple on a hill- 
top against the brightness of the clear twilight sky. It 
is a stern figure enough, lacking many of the ordinary 
graces, but it is a manly figure withal, fidl of strength 
and force and purpose. He had grave faults, but they 
were the faults of a strong and not a weak natui'e, and his 



THE PURITANS 35 

virtues were those of a robust man of lofty aims. It is true 
that he drove Roger Williams into exile and persecuted 
the Antinomians, but he founded successful and God-fear- 
ing commonwealths. He hanged Quakers, and in a mad 
panic put old women to death as witches, but he planted a 
college in the wilderness and put a sclioolhouse in every 
village. He made a narrow creed the test of citizenship, 
but he founded the town-meeting, where every man helped 
to govern and where all men were equal before the law. 
He banished harmless pleasures and cast a gloom over 
daily life, but he formed the first union of States in the 
New England confederacy, and through the mouth of one 
of the witchcraft judges uttered an eloquent protest 
against human slavery a century before Garrison was 
born or Wilberforce began his agitation. He refused 
liberty of conscience to those who sought it beneath the 
shadow of his meeting-house, but he kept the torch of 
learning burning brightly in the New World. In the 
fullness of time he broke the fetters which he had himself 
forged for the human mind, as he had formerly broken the 
shackles of Laud and Charles. He was rigid in his pre- 
judices, and filled with an intense pride of race and home, 
but when the storm of war came upon the colonies he gave 
without measure and without stint to the common cause. 

Has not New England, the home of the Puritan, 
learned, too, the lesson of the times as the long proces- 
sion of the years moved by ? Has she not learned and 
taken to her heart the lesson of this great commonwealth, 
which from the beginning stood for a free church in a 
free state, the doctrine now accepted throughout the 
length and breadth of the land? Has she not freed her- 
seK from the narrowing influence of her early creeds, and 
turned her intellect to broader and nobler works ? 



36 THE PURITANS 

Call the roll of our poets and you will find New Eng- 
land's answer in the names of Longfellow and Lowell, 
of Emerson and Holmes. Call the roll of our historians 
and you will find her answer again in the names of Pres- 
cott and Motley, of Bancroft and Parkman. Turn to old 
Essex, the birthplace and the centre of Puritanism, and 
she will respond with the greatest name of all, Nathaniel 
Hawthorne, and yet again with that beloved name to 
which we all bowed in reverence but the other day, the 
name of Whittier. To-day Essex holds as her noblest 
possession, and the Puritan States cherish above all men, 
the gi*acious poet who by pure and noble verse has been a 
voice and a guide to their people. Yet this poet whom 
New England so loves and cherishes is a member of that 
sect which two hundred years ago she persecuted and ex- 
iled. Is not this in itself a commentary upon the growth 
of New England above all tributes of praise ? 

We honor the Puritan, despite all his errors, for Ms 
strong, bold nature, his devotion to civic freedom, and«his 
stern, unconquerable will. We would not barter our de- 
scent from him for the pedigree of kings. May we not 
now say that we also honor him because his race has 
shown itseK able to break through its own trammels, and 
" rise on stepping-stones of their dead selves to higher 
things"? 



HAEVARD COLLEGE IN POLITICS 

FROM A SPEECH AT THE MEETING OF THE HARVARD 

REPUBLICAN CLUB, IN TREMONT TEMPLE, 

NOVEMBER 22, 1888 



HARVAKD COLLEGE IN POLITICS 



We meet here to-night with a definite purpose, and we 
meet in the name of Harvard. That name is dear, not 
only to Harvard's children, but to every son of Massa- 
chusetts. The ground on which her temples stand is holy 
groimd. It is sacred to learning, to patriotism, and to 
truth. Fair Harvard ! The name is girt with traditions 
which tell of the dark days of the savage and the wilder- 
ness, when the lamp of learning was first lighted on these 
barren shores. They speak to us of the patriotism of 
1776 and of 1861. They teU the long story of noble 
lives unselfishly given to the cause of American scholar- 
ship; 

We do not gather here to assert that we are the sole 
and only representatives of the college. All that we lay 
claim to is the right, common to all her sons, to serve, 
honor, and defend her with loyalty and truth. We do not 
come to give out to the world that Harvard College sup- 
ports the party to which we belong. Were such the pur- 
pose of this meeting, I for one would have no part or lot 
in it. We gather here to protest, in the only way open to 
us, against the attempt which has been made to drag the 
college into politics, and to use her honored name as a 
makeweight in party strife. We are not here to declare 
that the college is Republican, but to stamp as utterly 
false the assertion that our beloved alma mater is bound 
to the wheels of any man's political chariot. Harvard 



40 HARVARD COLLEGE IN POLITICS 

belongs to no party and to no sect. Her doors stand open 
to men o£ every faith and every creed, and from her pre- 
cincts they go out into the world with her blessing upon 
them to fight the battle of life each in his own way. No 
man and no set of men have the right to speak for the 
great imiversity. She is not the property of any one. 
She speaks for herself. She is dedicated to Christ and 
the Church, and the single word upon her broad shield is 
Truth. She asks no blind subservience to the doctrines 
of any man. She gives to all who come to her a liberal 
education, not in the mere technical sense, but in the 
broad spirit of tolerance and free inquiry. She teaches 
respect for the pursuits and opinions of others. She 
frowns upon that narrowness which imputes imworthy 
motives to those who differ from it. She says to all: 
Think for yourselves, love your country, and follow truth 
as you see it, with an open mind and an honest heart. 



THE DAY WE CELEBRATE 

IN ANSWER TO A TOAST AT THE DINNER OF THE NEW 

ENGLAND SOCIETY OF BROOKLYN, 

DECEMBER 21, 1888 



THE DAY WE CELEBKATE 



There is one toast, Mr. President, to which no son of 
New England can ever refuse to respond, one sentiment 
to which he must always answer. When the President 
of a New England society looks toward any one and says, 
"I give you Forefathers' Day," even the most modest 
among us must rise and speak. Those two simple words 
have a world of meaning to the cliildren of the Pilgrim 
and the Puritan. Mathematics symbolizes the unknown 
by a single letter, and expresses infinity by another. So 
when we meet upon this anniversary our imagination 
gathers into those two words all that we mean by New 
England. For us they stop the hurrying tide of daily life, 
and open the leaves of memory's book. In them we hear 
again the solemn music of the wind among New England's 
pines. When those magic words are uttered, the murmur 
of the rivers and the roar of the mountain torrents, the 
crash of the siu'f upon the ledges and the gentle lapping 
of the summer sea upon the shingle, sound once more in 
our ears. Again we see the meadows green and shining 
with the touch of spring, and the rocky hillsides brilliant 
with the goldenrod or glowing in the purple flush of 
autumn. AU the scenes that we knew in childliood, and 
that in manhood we do not forget, rise up before us. It 
is but a little corner of the great land which we call 
our own, and yet we love it. 



44 THE DAY WE CELEBRATE 

We repeat the words and tiiru again tlie pages of mem- 
ory ; the landscape fades and the figures of the past are 
before us. We pass out of the eager, bustling present 
and are once more in touch with the strong race which 
clung to the rocky coast until they made it their own, and 
whose children and whose children's children have forced 
their way across the continent, carrying with them the 
principles and the beliefs of the forefathers. 

The Pilgrim and the Piu-itan whom we honor to-night 
were men who did a gTeat work in the world. They had 
their faults and shortcomings, but they were not slothful 
in business and they were most fervent in spirit. They 
founded prosperous commonwealths, and built up govern- 
ments of laws and not of men. They carried the light of 
learning undunmed through the early years of settlement. 
They planted a schoolhouse in every village, and fought 
always a good fight for ordered liberty and for human 
rights. Their memories shall not perish, for 

" the actions of the just 
Smell sweet and blossom in the dust." 

I have read, sir, that the Pilgrims and the Puritans 
among their other virtues did not number that of toler- 
ance. Hostile critics have indeed insinuated that there 
was sometliing not unlike persecution for opinion's sake 
in early New England. But, however it may have been at 
that time, in these latter days it has been the characteris- 
tic of New England to cherish freedom of speech, and no- 
where is a greater latitude found than at these very New 
England dinners. No one, so far as my observation goes, 
ever seems to feel restricted by the sentiment to which he 
is asked to answer, even when it is as novel as the one 
you have kindly assigned to me, and I am going to avail 
myself of this liberality. 



THE DAY WE CELEBRATE 45 

There is a wide field opened here before each one of us 
among subjects of present interest. Among other events 
there has been an election. I should like of course to 
point out its lessons. Pointing out the lessons of an elec- 
tion, however, although pleasant, is one-sided, for I have 
noticed that it is an exercise in which the winners are 
prone to indidge without much aid from the vanquished. 
I shoidd like to preach to you on this text, for we New 
Engianders have too much of the old Puritan blood not to 
like to preach, especially to somebody else, but I will put 
the temptation aside and spare your patience. 

There is, however, one phase of the election which I 
think reaches far beyond party, if we take the trouble to 
go a little beneath the surface. I refer to the strong 
American feehng, that was developed during the canvass, 
not in noise and shouts, but in regard to many vital ques- 
tions. Tliis feeling I think is going to last. The War for 
the Union and the issues springing from it have been set- 
tled. While they lasted they overshadowed everything 
else. But all the time other questions have been growing 
up with the growth of the nation, and are now coming to 
the front for decision. It is oui' duty to settle them, not 
only in the right way, but in a thorouglily American fash- 
ion. By Americanism I do not mean that which had a 
brief political existence more than thirty years ago. That 
movement was based on race and sect, and was therefore 
thorougldy un-American, and failed, as all un-American 
movements have failed in this country. True American- 
ism is opposed utterly to any political divisions resting on 
race and religion. To the race or to the sect which as 
such attempts to take possession of the politics or the 
public education of the country, true Americanism says. 
Hands off ! The American idea is a free church in a 



46 THE DAY WE CELEBRATE 

free state, and a free and unsectarian public scliool in 
every ward and in every village, with its doors wide open 
to the children of all races and of every creed. It goes 
still further, and frowns upon the constant attempt to 
divide our people according to origin or extraction. Let 
every man honor and love the land of his birth and the 
race from which he springs and keep their memory green. 
It is a pious and honorable duty. But let us have done 
with British- Americans and Irish- Americans and German- 
Americans, and so on, and all be Americans, — nothing 
more and nothing less. If a man is going to be an 
American at aU let him be so without any qualifying 
adjectives ; and if he is going to be something else, 
let him drop the word American from his personal de- 
scription. 

As there are sentiments and beliefs like these to be 
cherished, so there are policies which must be purely and 
wholly American and to " the manner born " if we would 
have them right and successful. True Americanism 
recognizes the enormous gravity of the social and labor 
problems which confront us. It believes that the safety 
of the republic dej)ends upon well-paid labor and the 
highest possible average of individual weU-being. It be- 
lieves that the right solution of this problem shoidd be 
sought without rest and without stay, and that no device, 
public or private, of legislation or of individual effort, 
which can tend to benefit and elevate the condition of the 
great wage-earning masses of this comitry, should be left 
untried. It sets its face rigidly against the doctrine of 
the Anarchist and the Communist, who seek to solve the 
social problems, not by patient endeavor, but by brutal de- 
struction. " That way madness lies," — and such attempts 
and such teachings, barbarous and un-American as they 



THE DAY WE CELEBRATE 47 

are, must and will be put down with a strong and un- 
flinching hand, in the name of the home and the church 
and the school, and of all that makes up civilization and 
the possibility of human progress. 

In the great public lands of the West an American 
policy sees one of the safeguards of the republic. It op- 
poses the further use of these lands to invite immigration 
or to attract speculation. They should be the heritage of 
the American people, and not a bait to draw a surplus 
popiUation that we do not want. The true American 
policy goes further, and believes that immigration should 
not only not be stimulated, but that it should be restricted. 
The pauper and the criminal, the diseased and the vicious, 
the Anarchist, the Communist and the polygamist, should 
be absolutely shut out, while the general flow of immigra- 
tion should be wisely and judiciously checked. 

It is the American policy to admit to the Union the 
great territories of the West as fast as they can fulfill 
the conditions of statehood ; but it is not the American 
policy to admit an un-American territory with a popula- 
tion of Mexicans who speak Spanish, or Utah with a 
population which defies our laws and maintains a barbar- 
ous and corrupting system of marriage. When these two 
territories are thoroughly Americanized, they can come in 
with the rest and take part in our government, but not 
before. 

It is the American policy never to meddle in the affairs 
of other nations, but to see to it that our attitude toward 
the rest of the world is dignified, and that our flag is re- 
spected in every corner of the earth, and backed by a 
navy which shall be an honor to the American name. 

Last and greatest of all, true Americanism demands 
that the ballot box everywhere shall be inviolate, even if it 



48 THE DAY WE CELEBRATE 

takes the whole force of the United States to make it so. 
The people's confidence in the decision of the ballot box is 
the only guaranty we have of the safety of our institu- 
tions, and we do not now guard it as we ought. It is to 
these things that the American people are looking; and 
while they have no ignorant contempt for the experience 
of other nations, they are firm in the faith that they must 
settle their own problems in their own way, in accordance 
with their own conditions and in the light of their own 
ideas and beliefs. In that faith they will meet the prob- 
lems and the difficulties wliich they, in common with all 
manldnd, must face. They will move on with a high 
and confident spirit ; they will extinguish the last traces 
of sectional differences, and if they are true to themselves 
they wiU yet do the best work that has ever been given to 
any people on earth to do. 



,/ 



INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT 

SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF REPRISENTATIVES, 

MAY 2, 1890 



INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT 



Mr. Speaker, aU property is the creation of law. 

" The good old rule, the simple plan, 
That they should take who have the power, 
And they should keep who can," 

has been replaced in the progress of civilization by law. 
The title deed of the sword has given way to the title 
deed of the pen. From one kind of possession to another 
the law has marched on, extending at the same time its 
protection, first given to the native of the land, to the 
stranger within its gates. 

The most recent advance is that which has recognized 
property in the creations of the mind, in inventions or in 
books, the latter of which is known as literary property. 
This formal recognition dates back, with the English- 
speaking race, to the statute of Anne ; and for two him- 
dred and fifty years all who used " that ample speech, that 
subtle speech," have maintained the wisdom of the legis- 
lation. Literary property is recognized also in the Con- 
stitution of the United States, and the justice of copy- 
right has never been questioned in this country. 

The next step, as in the case of other property, is to 
accord to the stranger and the outsider the same property 
rights that our laws accord to the native of the country. 
In all cases of ordinary property this has been fully and 
amply done ; but the last step in this path, that which 



52 INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT 

most conspicuously separates the civilized from tlie half- 
civilized or barbarous nation, has not yet been taken by 
the United States. 

We do not yet recognize the property right of the for- 
eigner in the product of his mind, or, in other words, in 
his book. To my thinking, this is simple dishonesty, but 
I do not propose, sir, to argue that point. In the first 
place it is too plain a proposition to invite discussion, 
and in the second place national honor does not seem to 
be the subject of the story with those who speak in oppo- 
sition to this bill. The opponents of the bill rest their 
case on widely different grounds, and seem only anxious 
to show that what is stolen is cheap. There certainly is 
some foundation for this view if we are short-sighted as to 
both the moral and the economic effects. I have no 
doubt that when Rob Roy lifted cattle, cattle were cheaper 
among the MacGregors than they were inunediately after 
the death of that lamented chieftain. But I do not think 
that that fact alters the ethics of the question. 

" In vain we call old notions fudge 

And bend our conscience to our dealing ; 
The Ten Commandments will not budge, 
And stealing will continue stealing." 

The great argument that is made here in opposition to 
international copyright is that this bill, if it passes, is 
going to make literature dear to the American people. 
Mr. Speaker, it will do nothing of the kind, and the asser- 
tion that it will do so is the barest assumption ever made. 
Take France, for example, which has an international 
copyright and has had for years. They issue there several 
popular series, well printed, perfectly readable, at five 
cents and even two cents a number ; and these series con- 
tain the best literature of France and of the world, not 



INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT 53 

the offscourings of the literary gutters of other countries. 
The same is true in Germany ; and the effect of the hiw 
here will be, not to make literature dear, but in the series 
of cheap books simply to substitute for the works of for- 
eigners the works of American authors. In France and 
Germany the best literature is the cheapest. With us the 
exact reverse is the case, and we tempt our people to read 
what is worst and even assist them to do so by making it 
cheap. In one word, cheapness is determined by the con- 
ditions of your market and by the demands of your read- 
ing public, and not by copyright laws. 

The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Payson) produced 
the catalogue of the Seaside Library, and declared that 
nine tenths of it was standard literature. He read the 
names of some standard authors, of Carlyle and others, 
as if they and those like them filled the list. Now, see 
how plain a tale will put him down. Of the 1,073 books 
in the Seaside Library, 92 per cent, are novels, and 97 
per cent, are written by foreigners. The same propor- 
tion holds true in other cases, as any one can see who will 
read the careful analysis of Mr. Brander Matthews in his 
admirable essay on "Cheap Books and Good Books." 
Instead of nine tenths being standard literature in such 
series as these, nine tenths are fiction, of which the 
greater part is at the best foolish and enervating, and at 
the worst positively vicious. 

In this connection, allusion was made to Dickens. No 
book, let me say in passing, which was written before the 
passage of this act, is affected by it. But the gentleman 
says that, if that is true, we must look to the Dickens that 
is to come. Suppose another Dickens does come, or any 
man of equal genius writing in the English tongue, 
would the American people grudge to him who ministered 



54 INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT 

so to their pleasure, with whom they have wept and 
laughed, who has lightened their sorrow and softened 
their labors, the small royalty that an author receives on 
his work ? Would they grudge to-day to the creator of 
all that marvelous fiction, from the " Pickwick Papers " to 
" Edwin Drood, " a share in the profits which are now 
reaped exclusively by the publisher ? Mr. Speaker, I do 
not beheve it for one moment. Such meanness would be 
impossible to the American people, the most generous 
people in the world. 

But, sir, in the brief time allowed me I wish to speak 
chiefly in behalf of the writers of America, in behalf of 
those who write and make books, of the men who live by 
the pen, the journalists and essayists, the writers of fic- 
tion and the writers of history, and of the printers who 
aid them in the mechanical part of their task. They do 
not come here and ask you for subventions, or subsidies, 
bounties, or protection. They do not ask you to take 
their property as security, and issue to them a large 
amount of money upon it, or to build them warehouses 
in every county. They ask you simply for justice ; that 
you shall not discriminate against them, and make still 
smaller and harder opportunities and earnings which are 
never either large or easy. That is all they ask ; nothing- 
else. 

You now take the foreign author's works and pay him 
nothing. You save on these the copyright, which on an 
average is ten per cent, royalty, and by this discrimina- 
tion you drive the American author out of his own mar- 
ket. Speaking as one who has followed in a humble way 
the career of literature, I say to this House that I do not 
understand how any one in his senses can imagine that 
the American author would not desire the great circvda- 



INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT 55 

tion and corresponding profit of cheap editions. That is 
really all we ask for, and yet no American publisher can 
undertake to print an American book, with rare exceptions, 
in one of these cheap editions, for the simple reason that 
he must pay the American author a royalty, while he 
pays the foreign author none. This is a direct and unjust 
discrimination against the American author. 

As for the combinations that are talked of, the monop- 
olies that are used here as bugbears, where are they ? 

There is one lying dormant now in the cheap reprints, 
and if this bill is defeated that trust in cheap reprints will 
spring into life. International copyright is free copy- 
right, which is equal protection to all, and that is the way 
to stop that trust. The present partial system is the way 
to make trusts and combinations possible, and nothing 
else. 

There is one other point, more important than any 
other, which I wish to make to the House, and that is that 
we give to our reading public, to our girls and boys, our 
young men and women, at the most impressionable age, 
when their ideas and habits of thought are forming, the 
very books that we ought not to give them. We should 
furnish them with a high order of books, not foreign 
books, not cheap books, not translations by the myriad 
of French novels dedicated, as Matthew Arnold said, to 
the goddess of " Lubricity," not second-class English 
novels, the novels of the snob and the tuft-hunter, written 
about dukes and duchesses and lords and ladies from 
the point of view of a lackey, and which hold up ideals 
utterly hostile to ours. Not such stuff as this should we 
encourage and even force our youth to read, but the best 
books of aU ages, and especially wholesome American 
books, which will bring them up to love America, which 



56 INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT 

will fill tliem with American ideas, with reverence and 
love for American principles of government, and with re- 
spect for American society, instead of admiration for sys- 
tems of government and society wholly alien to their own. 
Nothing is cheap that is false. Let us be true to ourselves 
and to the youth of the Republic. 

In their name I ask for a favorable vote on this bill. 
I ask for it in the name of the printers, forty thousand 
of whom stand behind this bill, because they see that it 
will increase the work and the wages of the American 
workmen. I hold in my hand a telegram from a man 
who once stood at the case, and who now holds an hon- 
orable place among you here, in which he says : " Ask 
for leave to print on the copyright bill. I hope it wiU 
pass. Amos J. Cummings." 

I ask for it in the name of every man who uses a pen, 
whether on the daily press or in making a book, of the men 
who minister to your information, to your amusement and 
to your instniction. Think what we owe to literature ; a 
debt which never can be paid. " Books," says Dr. John- 
son, " help us to enjoy life or teach us to endure it." 
What a service is this. Be just, at least to those who 
help us to enjoy and teach us to endiu'e. I ask it most 
of all in the name of the national honor. As an American 
I deplore the spectacle of the United States alone among 
the civilized nations taking the highwayman's attitude, 
robbing the foreign and the native author alike, and 
injuring their own readers beyond the power of words to 
describe. In the name of all these, of printers, writers, 
and readers, and of the good name of the Republic itself, 
I hope that the bill wiU pass. 



THE CIVILIZATION OF THE PUBLIC 
SCHOOL. A REPLY 

SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESFJ^TATIVES, 
JANUARY 13, 1890 



THE CIVILIZATION OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL. 

A REPLY 



TLe House being in Committee of the Whole on the state of the 
Union and having under consideration the bill (H. R. 12573) making 
appropriations for the support of the Army fox the fiscal year ending 
June 30, 1892, and for other purposes, — 

Mr. Lodge said : 

Mr. Chairman : I find by the Record of this morning 
that while I was absent from the House yesterday after- 
noon on business connected with the Naval Committee, of 
which I am a member, I was honored by a personal attack 
from the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Stone]. The 
carefully prepared sentences of that effort show much 
labor, and it was evidently the intention of the gentleman 
to be severe. He has, however, mistaken abuse for sever- 
ity; and into a competition of coarse personal abuse I 
have no intention of entering. Li that field I willingly 
yield to him the supremacy. 

I have never indulged in personalities in debate. I 
have always f oimd it possible to discuss public measures 
without personal allusions to the gentlemen who have dif- 
fered from myself in opinion. From that habit I do not 
intend to deviate now or at any time. I am always ready 
to concede to gentlemen who differ from me the same 
sincerity of motive and honesty of purpose that I claim 
for myself. But at the same time I have a large char- 



60 CIVILIZATION OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL 

ity, Mr. Chairman, for those gentlemen whose mental 
limitations are such that they can reach notoriety only 
by indulging in personalities. The head and front of 
my offending, it appears, is that I am in part responsible 
for the Federal election bill. That bill was reported from 
my committee. With my colleague from Illinois [Mr. 
Rowell] and other gentlemen I helped to frame it. With 
their aid I helped to pass it through the House. 

Whatever the defects or imperfections of that measure 
may be, I believe most thorouglily in the principle wliich 
it involves. It is the principle of honest elections and of 
the protection of the ballot box, not in the South, not in 
the North, but throughout the length and breadth of the 
land. With that principle I am always ready and always 
proud to be identified. I believe that the Republican 
party can make no greater mistake after its past and its 
pledges than to fail now either here or elsewhere in loyalty 
to the doctrine of protection to the ballot box. I am 
quite ready to let my record stand on that question, and it 
does not disturb me in the least that gentlemen of the 
other side should assail me on account of it. It only 
shows that the shaft was well aimed and that it has gone 
home. 

Now, Mr. Chairman, the gentleman seems to be annoyed 
that I had a great-grandfather. George Cabot was a re- 
spectable, honorable, and not altogether undistinguished 
man, and I am very proud of his memory, although he 
held some views in politics with which I do not personally 
agree. No attack upon New England, however, would 
ever be complete without an allusion to the Hartford Con- 
vention, of which he was president. It has been the im- 
failing resource of Democratic statesmen, when at a loss 
to say something disagreeable about New England, for the 



CIVILIZATION OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL 61 

last seventy-five years, and I suppose it will continue to 
serve their turn for many more years to come, esjjecially 
as the members of that convention are unable to resent 
anything that may be said of them. 

The attitude of New England Federalists from 1807 
to 1815 is one with which I have little sympathy and 
have had less and less as I have gone on in life ; but gen- 
tlemen on the other side seem to forget that the position 
taken by the Hartford Convention was but a repetition 
of the position taken by Jefferson and Madison in the 
Virginia and Kentucky resolutions. It was, whether you 
call it "nuUifieation " or " interposition," the doctrine that 
State rights are capable of overruling the power and the 
laws of the National Government. To that jjrinciple I 
am opposed, whether it emanated in times past from Vir- 
ginia or Kentucky or New England. But it ill becomes 
representatives of the South, even when they are most 
at a loss for an argument, to rail at New England about 
a doctrine which first found root in their soil and which 
there and there alone flourished and grew until it blos- 
somed into the red flower of rebellion. 

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Missouri also saw 
fit in the course of his remarks to assail a Senator from 
my State, who could by no possibility reply to him on 
this floor. For a speech less violent in language, relating 
to another Senator, this House saw fit to take very decisive 
action of censure. I leave it to the House to say whether 
the time has not come now to repeat that action. 

The Senator from my State to whom the allusion was 
made woidd not wish me, nor woidd he deem it necessary, 
that I should enter into any defense of him from such an 
attack as that made here yesterday. Long after the gen- 
tleman who made it has passed from this House into that 



62 CIVILIZATION OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL 

forgetfulness which awaits him and perhaps most of us, 
the name of the Senator to whom he referred will remain 
in the history of the United States as that of a ripe scholar 
and a patriotic, far-seeing statesman, identified with great 
policies and useful measures, who would have been an 
honor to any State or any country. Still less, Mr. Chair- 
man, should I deem it necessary on this occasion to de- 
fend either New England or Massachusetts. The history 
of Massachusetts is before the world and is Imown of all 
men. As Webster said : " She needs no eidogium ; there 
she stands ; behold her and judge for yourselves." 

There, too, is her great record of service to the cause of 
human rights and human liberty. There are the names 
of her statesmen and of her soldiers shining ever with a 
lustre no slanders can dim. There are her lasting services 
to the advancement of the highest civilization. They are 
all written in the pages of the history of the United 
States. They stand there forever for the considerate judg- 
ment of mankind ; and her people have no fear of the 
verdict. 

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman saw fit in what was in- 
tended, I suppose, to be one of his most wounding pas- 
sages, to refer to me as the " Oscar Wilde of American 
statesmanship." It was a perfectly safe attack, for it is 
quite impossible for me to retort in kind, as I am not 
aware that the gentleman is the proprietor of any kind of 
statesmanship whatever. I suppose the allusion was really 
meant to convey the idea that the statesmanship of Mas- 
sachusetts and of New England is " effeminate." That is a 
very easy accusation to make. It is a view which natur- 
ally is taken of a high civilization by a lower one. It is 
the view which would naturally be taken of the civilization 
of the public school by the civilization of the shotgun. 



CIVILIZATION OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL 63 

But let me say, Mr. Chairman, that when the two civili- 
zations came in armed contact there was nothing " effemi- 
nate " then in the civilization of the public school and of 
personal liberty. The civilization of the shotgun and of 
the slave went down before it in bloody ruin, never to 
be restored. 



MASSACHUSETTS 

FROM CLOSING SPEECH IN DEBATE WITH HON. JOHN E. 
RUSSELL, TREMONT TEMPLE, OCTOBER 23, 1891 



MASSACHUSETTS 



It is a high honor to be Governor of Massachusetts. 
To all who dwell within her confines, the old State is very, 
very dear. She has a right to our love and pride. " Be- 
hold her and judge for yourselves." Here she is, a Queen 
among commonwealths, enthroned amidst her hills and 
streams, with the ocean at her feet. Trade is in her 
marts and prayer within her temples. Her cities stir with 
busy life. Her wealth grows, beyond the dreams of ava- 
rice. Her rivers turn the wheels of industry, and the smoke 
of countless chimneys tells the story of the inventor's gen- 
ius and the workman's skill. But the material side is the 
least of it. We rejoice mightily in her prosperity, but 
our love and pride are touched by nobler themes. We 
love the old State. The sand hills of the Cape, with the 
gulls wheeling over the waste of waters ; the gray ledges 
and green pastures of Essex, with the seas surging forever 
on her rocks ; the broad and fruitfid valleys of the Con- 
necticut ; the dark hills and murmuring streams of Berk- 
shire, have to us a tender charm no other land can give. 
They breathe to us the soft message that tells of home and 
country. Still it is something more than the look of hill 
and dale, something deeper than habit which stirs our hearts 
when we think of Massachusetts. Behind the outward 
form of things lies that which passeth show. It is in the 
history of Massachusetts, in the lives of her great men, 



68 MASSACHUSETTS 

in the sacrifices, in the deeds and in the character of her 
people that we find the true secret of our love and pride. 
We may not explain it even to ourselves, but it is there 
in the good old name, and flushes into life at the sight 
of the white flag. Massachusetts ! Utter but the word 
and what memories throng upon her children ! Here 
came the stern, God-fearing men to find a home and 
found a State. Here, almost where we stand, on the 
edge of the wilderness, was placed the first public school. 
Yonder, across the river, where the track of the savage 
still lingered and the howl of the wolf was still heard, was 
planted the first college. Here, through years of peril 
and privation, with much error and failure, but ever 
striving and marching onward, the Puritans built their 
State. It was this old town that first resisted England 
and bared its breast to receive the hostile spears. In the 
fields of Middlesex the first blood was shed in the Amer- 
ican Revolution. On the slopes of Bunker Hill the 
British troops first recoiled under American fire. Mas- 
sachusetts was the first great Commonwealth to resist the 
advance of slavery, and in the mighty war for the Union 
she had again the sad honor to lay the first blood offering 
on the altar of the nation. This is the State that Win- 
throp founded. Warren died for her liberties and Web- 
ster defended her good name. Sumner bore stripes in 
behalf of her beliefs, and her sons gave their lives on every 
battlefield for the one flag she held more sacred than her 
own. She has fought for liberty. She has done justice 
between man and man. She has sought to protect the 
weak, to save the erring, to raise the unfortunate. She 
has been the fruitful mother of ideas as of men. Her 
thought has followed the sun and been felt throughout 
the length of the land. May we not say, as Charles Fox 



MASSACHUSETTS 69 

said of Switzerland, "Every man should desire once 
in his life to make a pilgrimage to Massachusetts, the 
land of liberty and peace ? " She has kept her shield mi- 
spotted and her honor pure. To us, her loving children, 
she is a great heritage and a great trust. 

It is a noble thing to be Governor of such a State. 
And let it never be forgotten that it is no light matter 
to hold the place once held by John A. Andrew, when 
he " stood as high priest between the horns of the altar 
and poured out upon it the best blood of Massachusetts." 



\ 



FREE COINAGE OF SILVER. 

SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 
MARCH 23, 1892. 



) 



FREE COINAGE OF SILVER. 



A bill (H. R. 4426) for the free coinage of gold and silver, and 
for the issue of coin notes, and for other purposes. 

Mr. Speaker : The statistics relating to silver and the 
silver question, to gold and to the ratio between them, are 
many. They have been brought together from various 
quarters, chiefly from Sauerbeck, and have seen a great 
deal of hard service of late years in both branches of 
Congress. They have been drawn out in regiments and 
platoons ; they have been marched and countermarched ; 
they have been paraded and formed in very hollow squares 
to resist cavalry ; in fact they have done their duty, and I 
at least do not propose to torment further these over- 
worked figures. I desire merely to discuss this bill very 
briefly in its practical bearings upon the currency and 
business of the country. 

There are two points of view from which the silver 
question may be approached ; one is the international and 
the other the domestic side. Internationally the question 
is whether the demonetization of silver, which has been 
adopted by England and Germany and which is threat- 
ened by Austria, has been a wise and beneficial policy for 
the business interests of the civilized world. England 
first put in practice the theory of a single gold standard. 
Thereupon, as is always the case when any economic 
theory is adopted by England, English statesmen and 



74 FREE COINAGE OF SILVER. 

economists at once proceeded to argue that no other sys- 
tem was sane, possible, or even honest, and thus they have 
continued, although the chorus is no longer quite as har- 
monious as at the start. . . . They have in this case as 
in others cried out with one voice that no intelligent man, 
no man of education, no moral man, could possibly hold 
any doctrine but that of the single gold standard. 

It will be generally found, I think, that when England 
adopts an economic theory it is because her people believe 
that it is profitable to do so. When, however, they have 
once taken up a policy out of which they believe they can 
make money, they like to have it understood that it is 
really virtue and not money which they seek, and so they 
indulge in loud declarations of the inmiutable truth of 
their theory and of the wickedness and dishonesty of 
every one who does not agree with them. This little 
peculiarity would concern them alone were it not that 
there is a certain number of persons in this coimtry who 
are always awed by the confident English assertions, and 
repeat them with parrot-like exactness. The question 
of the use of silver in the world's currency, however, is 
too large and difficult a subject to be settled by merely 
swallowing, whole, opinions made up and administered 
by some one else. It is a subject on which we ought to 
think for ourselves, and reach our own conclusions. 

As the matter stands to-day Germany has followed the 
example of England in demonetizing silver, and the effect 
of their joint action has been so serious in the transaction 
of the world's business that there is at this moment in 
England itself a strong party which favors the restoration 
of silver. The international question, therefore, is whether 
we sliall exclude silver from the world's currency or 
whether we shall return to the old policy of the use of 



FREE COINAGE OF SILVER. 75 

both metals. This question seems to turn on a sino-le 
point, and that is whether there is enough gold to serve 
even the very limited purposes for which under the mod- 
ern system of exchanges gold is required, or, in other 
words, whether there is gold enough to pay trade balances 
and supply the necessary reserve for the issue of paper 
money. This is a large question, upon which it is ex- 
tremely difficult to speak with any certainty, and I am 
not sure that we have enough facts in our possession to 
determine the point absolutely. 

Such evidence, however, as we have all appears to point 
one way. The events of the last two years certainly seem 
to indicate that the world's supply of gold is insufficient 
to meet the purposes for which gold is required. The 
rapidly recurring business panics at different money cen- 
tres, together with the struggles of the various nations to 
secure gold, all point to a very insufficient supply and to 
the necessity of using both metals instead of one only in 
the world's currency. I believe that if we in this country 
were to cease to hold up silver and were to stop its use in 
our currency, we should in less than two years compel its 
restoration by all civilized nations unless the supply of 
gold were greatly enlarged. 

But, however all this may be, it does not touch the 
practical domestic question now before this House. In 
settling that we can deal only with existing facts, and our 
views as to the international policy are not relevant. 
What, then, are the actual conditions ? Silver has been 
demonetized by two of the great commercial nations of 
the world, and the world's standard of value at this mo- 
ment is a gold standard. The question for us is not 
whether we will join in an international agreement to 
restore silver to the world's circulation, but whether, 



76 FREE COINAGE OF SILVER. 

when the world's standard as a matter of fact is gold, 
we shall enter upon the free coinage of the silver dollar, 
which, by the world's standard, is worth only seventy-two 
cents. 

For practical purposes it is of no consequence, as I have 
said, what our views may be as to the use of both metals or 
the abandonment of one in the world's currency. All that 
we have to decide is whether under existing conditions it 
is well for us to enter upon the free coinage of a silver 
dollar which is worth only seventy-two cents by the stand- 
ard imder which we, like everybody else, are carrying on 
and must carry on business. Under existing conditions, 
without any international agreement, I am utterly opposed 
to the free coinage of silver as proposed by this bill, and 
my opposition rests on the following grounds: — 

I believe, in the first place, that the free coinage of 
the present silver dollar under present conditions means 
the complete disappearance of gold from our currency. 
Gresham's Law is one of the few economic laws which 
experience has shown to work with perfect certainty. The 
overvalued metal always drives out the undervalued metal, 
and irredeemable paper will of course drive out both. I 
need not detain the House by giving the reasons for the 
operation of this law, because they are familiar to every 
one. 

In our own history we can see that the law has worked 
with perfect regularity. Hamilton's famous report es- 
tablished a correct ratio between gold and silver of 15 
to 1. Then silver relatively to gold began to cheapen. 
Early in the present century gold was worth three per 
cent more as to silver than the value stamped on the coin. 
Gresham's Law began to work, and gold began to disap- 
pear. In 1814 the gold coinage of the United States Mint 



FREE COINAGE OF SILVER. 77 

was $77,000; in 1815 it was 13000; in 1816 nothing. 
By 1819 gold had disappeared. The difference between 
the metals was slight, and the law worked slowly, but none 
the less surely. Many suggestions and much discussion 
ensued in Congress, and at last, in 1834, an act was passed 
changing the ratio. Senator Benton, speaking in the 
Senate at that time, said : — 

The false valuation put upon gold has rendered the mint of 
the United States, so far as the gold coinage is concerned, a 
most ridiculous and absurd institution. It has coined, and that 
at a large expense to the United States, 2,262,177 pieces of gold, 
worth $11,852,890, and where are the pieces now ? Not one of 
them to be seen ! all sold and exported ! and so regular is the 
operation that the Director of the Mint, in his latest report to 
Congress, says that the new coined gold frequently remains in 
the mint, uncalled for, though ready for delivery, until the day 
arrives for a packet to sail to Europe. He calculates that two 
millions of native gold will be coined annually hereafter, the 
whole of which, without a reform of the gold standard, will be 
conducted, like exiles, from the national mint to the seashore, 
and transported to foreign regions. 

The act of 1834 fixed the ratio between the metals at 16 
to 1. This reversed existing conditions, and overvalued 
gold. The law worked, and by 1840 the silver dollar had 
disappeared. From 1841 to 1851 the average world's pro- 
duction of gold was thirty-eight millions, and of silver thirty- 
four millions, a nearly equal amount. Then came the great 
discoveries of gold in Australia and California, and the 
product of gold rushed ahead of silver, thus increasing the 
overvaluation of gold so much that even our subsidiary coin 
began to disappear, and an act was passed in 1853 to prevent 
this inconvenience. Until the war we had gold alone, and 
the silver dollar was unknown. Then came the legal-tender 



78 FREE COINAGE OF SILVER. 

acts, an irredeemable paper currency, and gold followed 
silver, the law working this time with frightful rapidity. 

I give these figures merely as illustrations of the certain 
working of Gresham's Law, and also to prove that there 
is nothing peculiar about our situation to exempt us from 
the operation of natural laws. When it is said in answer 
to this that silver coinage of late years has not driven out 
our gold, the explanation is simple. We have not had free 
coinage, and the country by its natural growth has been 
able to absorb in its ordinary business the monthly increase 
of silver. Moreover, we have thus far with a limited coinage 
managed to maintain the silver dollar at par, because we 
have been able, and everybody has known that we were 
able, to give a gold for a silver dollar as much as for a 
greenback or for a gold certificate. 

But if this bill should become a law, gold would immedi- 
ately disappear, because there would then be free competi- 
tion between the overvalued and the undervalued metal. 
It would not all go out of the country, of course, but it 
would disappear in a very few days, for the simple reason 
that people would hoard gold, either because they expected 
to export it at a profit, or because they were frightened 
and wished to keep it. The first effect, therefore, of free 
coinage would be an immediate and most severe contrac- 
tion of the currency, for it would be some time before sil- 
ver could come in and take the place of the vast quantity 
of gold thus suddenly withdrawn. When that time arrived, 
the period of inflation would set in, because there is an 
immense amount of silver in the world which it would be 
profitable to pour in here for coinage. 

The result, economically speaking, would be to put us 
on a silver basis, to make us monometallists, with silver as 
the metal. This position seems to me indefensible, whether 



FREE COINAGE OF SILVER. 79 

one is in theory a bimetallist or a monometallist. If you 
are a bimetallist, you must be opposed to a single standard, 
no matter what the metal is. If you are a monometallist, 
you must be for gold, because if there is to be but one 
metal used as a standard no one will dispute that for that 
purpose gold is superior to silver. 

In the second place, I am opposed to free coinage be- 
cause I believe it would be a great injustice to the masses 
of the people, and would entail on them almost incalculable 
loss and suffering. There is no greater fallacy than that 
which is involved in the argument that the free coinage of 
a depreciated dollar would benefit the people because it 
would help the debtor class to pay their debts at a heavy 
discount. I know that this idea, although not openly 
avowed, lies at the bottom of much of the popular support 
of free silver, but it is none the less a delusion. Broadly 
speaking, the wage-earning class, which constitutes the 
great mass of the people of the United States, is the creditor 
class, and the capitalists and business men are the borrow- 
ing class. The validity of this classification is not affected 
in the least by the undoubted fact that there are many wage- 
earners and farmers who have borrowed money, usually on 
mortgage. 

This is a fact which may mislead superficial observers ; 
but the general truth in regard to the body of the people 
is that the wage-earners are creditors, and capitalists, 
corporations, and business men are borrowers. The men 
and women who earn daily wages are creditors at the end 
of every month, of every week, and of every day. Their 
small savings also, accumulated in large masses in banks, 
are borrowed by capitalists for business enterprises, and 
thus the best and most thrifty among them become credit- 
ors again. The great mass of the debts of this country 



80 FREE COINAGE OF SILVER. 

are owed by railroads, by corporations of every kind, by 
capitalists, and by all men engaged in the promotion of 
great business enterprises. 

Establish free coinage of silver in this country to-day, 
and as we shall still continue to do business on the world's 
standard, you will begin to pay creditors seventy-two cents 
on the dollar. In this situation the capitalist can protect 
himself, but the wage-earner cannot. The men and women 
who are earning daily wages will be the first to receive 
seventy-two cents on the dollar in payment for what they 
earn, and they will be the last to obtain even a partial ad- 
vance when the period of inflation sets in. The capitalist 
is always protected in some degree at least, but the wage- 
earner is utterly unprotected, and upon him the unlimited 
issue of a depreciated dollar will fall with peculiar force. 
There is no money so dear to the great wage-earning 
classes as what is called cheap money. In writing of the 
state of the English currency after the many years of 
Stuart misgovernment, Lord Macaulay says : — 

It may well be doubted whether all the misery which had been 
inflicted on the English nation in a quarter of a century by bad 
kings, bad ministers, bad Parliaments, and bad judges was equal 
to the misery caused in a single year by bad crowns and bad 
shillings. When the great instrument of exchange became 
thoroughly deranged, all trade, all industry, were smitten as with 
a palsy. 

The statement is not overcharged, and the principle on 
which it rests is as true and living now as in the days of 
William of Orange. 

I am opposed to free coinage of silver because it means 
contraction first, inflation second, and a continual derange- 
ment of values. When the currency is disturbed and 



FREE COINAGE OF SILVER. 81 

values are unsettled, gambling speculation flourishes and 
legitimate business declines. 

The decline of legitimate business, the lack of confidence 
among business men, mean not only loss to them, but ruin 
to countless people who depend on innumerable business 
enterprises for their daily bread. Stability of the currency 
is a prime condition of business prosperity, and business 
cannot prosper unless confidence founded on a reasonable 
anticipation of the future prevails. With a disordered cur- 
rency such confidence is impossible, and business paralysis 
is certain to ensue. 

The country does not believe that free coinage can 
become a law at the present time, but the effect of free 
coinage in destroying business confidence is already per- 
ceptible in the attitude of foreign investors. We have 
had a year of unusual prosperity, and Europe has been 
obliged to buy our crops at our own prices. The trade 
balance has been something like one hundred and seventy 
millions in our favor, and yet at this moment we are ex- 
porting gold. In other words, Europe is paying the 
enormous trade balances in American securities. 

I am very far from attributing this merely to alarm 
about the silver question, for a year ago last fall England 
passed through a terrible business crisis. To get money 
she sold American securities because they were the best 
and most salable thing she had, and that movement has 
not spent its force. But, although some people in Eng- 
land lost a great deal of money, many did not, and it is 
the people who did not lose and who have money to in- 
vest who are affected by the silver bill. They would take 
American securities, which experience has shown them to 
be the best, if they were not alarmed by the prospect of 
free coinage and its consequent derangement of values. 



82 FREE COINAGE OF SILVER. 

We need abundant capital in the United States, and no 
part of the country needs it so much as those regions 
where the movement for free coinage is strongest. Every 
American security that we buy back means just so much 
American capital shut out from new enterprises and from 
the work of developing the still undeveloped resources of 
many of our states. 

I oppose the free coinage of the silver dollar, therefore, 
because I believe that it means putting us on the single 
silver standard and separating us from the standard of the 
civilized world ; because it will bring heavy loss to the great 
wage-earning classes of the country ; because it means a dis- 
ordered currency and unsettled values, which bring in their 
train the destruction of public confidence and the arrest of 
business activity. I paired against the consideration of this 
measure because a vote against any consideration is to my 
mind equivalent to a vote to kill the bill. I paired against 
postponement, and shall vote against all postponement, 
because postponement was and is merely an attempt to 
evade for the convenience of a small minority of the Demo- 
cratic party a question which ought to be settled now, and 
because this evasion is, in my opinion, much worse for the 
country than a decisive vote. 

It is the fashion in certain quarters to talk about the 
free-silver movement as merely the corrupt effort of a few 
mine-owners to enrich themselves. Nothing is gained by 
such deception as this. Undoubtedly the mine-owners with 
a selfish interest in free coinage have done and are doing all 
in their power to foster and strengthen the movement, but it 
is equally undoubted that if the mine-owners were the only 
people interested in free coinage the question would never 
be heard of in this House. The rich mine-owner is no more 
popular in this body than any other successful capitalist. 



FREE COINAGE OF SILVER. 83 

The strength of the silver movement lies in the fact that 
large bodies of the people of this country honestly believe 
that free coinage will be beneficial to them. To me this 
seems a pitiful delusion, but there is no use in blinking the 
fact, and I have no sympathy with the practice of calling 
all those who differ with me on this subject either knaves 
or madmen. 

The Democratic party, partly from conviction and partly 
for votes, has adopted this free-silver movement and be- 
come its political champion. The casuistry and deception 
so freely used in my part of the country to prove that the 
Democratic party, which by an overwhelming majority 
favored free coinage, was really against it, will serve no 
longer. The veil has been rent away, and the true purposes 
of the Democratic party are laid bare. It is the natural 
ally of the free-silver movement. When that small minor- 
ity of the Democrats who believe in sound money are in 
such a state of mental confusion that they insist that 
seventy members of this House are more numerous than one 
hundred and forty, what is to be expected of the party gen- 
erally on a question of finance? The Democratic party has 
taken its position, and I rejoice that it has done so, for it 
means that we shall have a square, honest fight and no 
more hidings and evasions. 

As I have said, great bodies of our people believe in free 
coinage. I feel sure that they are utterly wrong and woe- 
fully misled in their belief; but there is only one way to 
meet them or to meet the movement which represents their 
wishes, and that is by open, strenuous, and fair public dis- 
cussion. This question cannot be smothered or evaded. 
It can be settled only by the great tribunal of the people 
voting directly upon it. To them it must be appealed, and 
I am glad that it is coming to a vote in this House, and is 



84 FREE COINAGE OF SILVER. 

to be remitted to the people at the next election. When 
it is so placed before the people I have no doubt of the 
ultimate result. The American people will decide, as 
they always have decided, in favor of a stable currency 
and honest money. 



THE TARIFF. 

SPEECH IN THE SENATE, APRIL 10, 1894. 



THE TARIFF. 



The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, having under consid- 
eration the bill (H. R. 4864) to reduce taxation, to provide revenue 
for the Government, and for other purposes — 

Mr. Lodge said : — 

Mr. President : Two questions are involved in this 
bill. One is the effect upon our business prosperity, 
the wages of our workingmen, and the welfare of our 
people of a given set of tariff schedules and duties on 
imports. The other is a much wider and deeper question, 
and involves nothing less than a conflict between two hos- 
tile theories of government, upon the outcome of which is 
staked the social and political fabric which embodies our 
modern civilization. The first question is domestic and 
of the gravest and most immediate importance. But it 
neither belittles nor underrates it to say that it falls far 
short of the second in its scope and in its influence upon 
the fortunes of civilized man. 

In what I shall say I propose to discuss the second and 
larger question first, for on that I think the cause in which 
I believe most surely rests. Protection and free trade 
are merely expressions in one direction of the differing 
theories of society and government which have been strug- 
gling for recognition and acceptance during this century, 
with the control of the affairs of the civilized world as the 
great prize set between them. They serve, however, to 



88 THE TARIFF. 

illustrate and exhibit the conflict of the contending forces 
of which they are only the outward sign and manifesta- 
tion. In examining the history of these two opposed tariff 
policies, we are able as readily as in any other way to 
reach the great principles which underlie them, and of 
which, as I have said, they are merely one expression. 

At the outset in treating of protection and free trade, 
it is well to clear our minds of cant. A tariff policy in its 
largest sense, as a part of a general theory and system of 
government, and in its farthest results, may affect a nation 
socially, morally, and politically ; it may so modify the 
distribution of wealth as to give it a wider and better 
scope, and by defending wages and standards of living may 
influence the whole arrangement and growth of society. 
On the other hand, a tariff policy in the usual and narrow 
sense, and especially fi*om the standpoint of the free trader, 
is purely an economic matter, a question of the pocket, of 
dollars and cents, and of the national method of doing 
business. In this latter aspect certainly there is nothing 
either sacred or moral about a tariff system. 

I have had the pleasure in recent years of hearing a 
number of persons discourse about free trade as a great 
moral issue. This attitude of mind has all the imperish- 
able charm of springtime, and these same people have 
been very fond of likening themselves to the early Abo- 
litionists and Free Soilers, as the forerunners, and, if 
need be, the noble but not suffering martyrs, of a great 
moral movement for the redemption of mankind. No one 
likes to lay an irreverent hand upon such beatitude as this, 
but it seems unavoidable to do so. There is nothing moral 
about the tariff question, in the narrow sense just described, 
nor is the morality of free trade greater than that of pro- 
tection. It seems hardly necessary to quote authority on 



THE TARIFF. 89 

this point, but if authority is needed, we have that of the 
great hero of the free traders, Adam Smith. That emi- 
nent man wrote the " Wealth of Nations," a very remark- 
able book, containing much of great value, and pointing 
out the pathway to be pursued by enlightened selfishness 
in its search for national prosperity. That book has been 
widely read and greatly admired. Its author, however, 
looked upon it as covering only half of the scheme of 
human society and human action, for seventeen years be- 
fore the publication of the " Wealth of Nations " he had 
written another book, which was complementary to the 
" Wealth of Nations," and which covered what that omit- 
ted. This earlier book he entitled " Moral Sentiments." 
It is quite forgotten now. I have never met a free trader 
who had read it, and very few who had heard of it. The 
"Moral Sentiments" have not proved as attractive as the 
methods of enlightened selfishness for getting rich, but 
the book demonstrates that Adam Smith knew that moral 
sentiments were not necessarily involved in a mere system 
of money-making, and established the distinction so broadly 
and clearly that he was justified, perhaps, in hoping that 
his followers and worshipers would understand it. 

Let us rest, then, if we need to do so, on the authority of 
Adam Smith, that " moral sentiments " are a thing apart 
from the " wealth of nations," or from tariff policies merely 
as such. To suppose otherwise, indeed, is as great an error 
as another theory which I have seen advanced, to the ef- 
fect that the American manufacturer is a " robber baron," 
who ought to be as destitute of rights as a black man under 
the Dred Scott decision, while the New York importer, 
generally of foreign birth and often with " no fatherland 
but the till," is a disinterested being so pure and good 
that if it were not for the imperfection of our earthly state 



90 THE TARIFF. 

we might expect to see angel wings springing from liis 
shoulders. The truth is that both are men with the usual 
supply of human nature and of enlightened selfishness 
about them, although I greatly prefer the American manu- 
facturer, because his enlightened selfishness is more profit- 
able to his own countrymen than that of the importer. 

It is always well to look at things as they are, even if 
the thing be free trade, to which some persons in beauti- 
ful language have consecrated themselves. It is best, if 
we would treat it intelligently, to know that by itself and 
of itself the tariff is a business question, and that protec- 
tion and free trade only take on a different and far deeper 
meaning when they are considered as parts of a question 
between far-reaching principles, which I believe involves 
the future of our race and the existence and progress of 
the highest civilization. It is in the latter and far graver 
aspect, as I have already said, that I prefer first to treat 
them. 

To the practical man of affairs the theoretical and con- 
vinced free trader is generally extremely exasperating. 
But to the student of history and to the disinterested ob- 
server, to men of philosophic minds and blessed with a 
sense of humor, he is one of the most interesting and en- 
tertaining of human phenomena. These convinced free 
traders generally have some education, and invariably 
think that they have a great deal. They are provided 
with a set of little sayings and aphorisms, which can be 
carried without intellectual strain in a very small compass, 
and which to their thinking are complete solutions of all 
social and economic questions. These they draw forth on 
all occasions and present them to the world with entire 
confidence in the finality of their little sentences and a 
profound contempt for all persons who venture to differ 



THE TARIFF. 91 

from them, and who do not think that the difficulties of 
humanity can be so easily dealt with. Their attitude re- 
minds one of Touchstone, who, unlike them, was both a 
wit and a humorist, but who had a similar way of senten- 
tiously disposing of the troubles of mankind. Every one 
remembers the description of Touchstone by the melan- 
choly Jaques : — 

" And then he drew a dial from his poke ; 
And looking on it with lack-lustre eye, 
Says, very wisely, ** It is ten o'clock ; 
Thus we may see," quoth he, "how the world wags: 
'T is but an hour ago since it was nine ; 
And after an hour more 't will be eleven ; 
And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe. 
And then from hour to hour, we rot and rot 
And thereby hangs a tale.' " 

And so the free trader, not in the forest of Arden, but 
in the busy, eager days of the nineteenth century pulls 
out his little memorandum and says, " The tariff is a tax." 
" You cannot become rich by taxing yourself any more 
than you can lift yourself by your boot-straps," and so on, 
and so on. It is very interesting to know that there are 
men who really think that the complex affairs of human- 
ity can be disposed of by a collection of epigrammatic 
half truths and watch-pocket memoranda, and who firmly 
believe that they can regulate the vast mechanism of 
modern society with a latch-key because that simple in- 
strument suffices to open their own front doors. They 
are interesting, also, in another way, for, to use the expres- 
sive slang of the day, " They know it all." The curious 
thing about it is that they really do know it all, if by " it " 
you mean free trade. It is possible for any one to know 
everything about free trade, because its doctrines reached 



92 THE TARIFF. 

maturity fifty years ago and have stood still ever since, 
untaught by history and unchanged by facts. 

The only condition necessary to this complete know- 
ledge, besides being able to read, is that you should know- 
nothing else except free trade. You must close your eyes 
and shut your ears to everything that has happened since 
the time of the Manchester school ; you must take Eng- 
lish opinion as the ultimate expression of human wisdom, 
and then you know all about free trade, and that is all 
you will know. Thus the free trader and his doctrine 
stand stationary and immovable. You cannot affix to 
them Galileo's sentence, which an American wit declared 
to be the proper motto for Italian locomotives, "And 
yet it moves." There is no motion about the free trader 
or his doctrine. To him human wisdom culminated and 
found its complete expression in the free-trade measures 
of the Manchester school — doctrines which Thomas Car- 
lyle irreverently christened " The Dismal Science " and 
the " Calico Millennium." 

To the average free trader nothing has happened since. 
His mind is as tightly shut to new ideas or new facts as 
that of the average Englishman on the currency question, 
or as a rock barnacle at low tide. He still believes not 
only that his doctrine is as scientifically true as the law of 
gravitation, but that it is absolutely new, although it is 
wrinkled with age and bent by the failures of fifty years. 
When the astronomer, calculating the orbit of Uranus, 
finds perturbations for which no known conditions ac- 
count, he reasons that there must be some hidden cause 
which is the origin of these uncalculated deviations. He 
observes and watches, and presently a new planet swims 
into his ken. His problem is solved, and he adjusts 
his calculations to meet the new conditions. Not so the 



THE TARIFF. 93 

free trader. The orbits that he calculates are full of 
variations, and facts conflict with his theories. He folds 
his arms and says, " So much the worse for the facts if 
they do not conform to ray doctrines." Look at any- 
thing they write or say, and you will find that they always 
begin by telling us what Sir Robert Peel did, what laws 
were passed in England from 1841 to 1846, or what Cob- 
den said, or what were the views of the league against 
the corn laws. To them that was, and now is, both the 
beginning and end of all wisdom, and yet it was all a half- 
century back. Much has happened since then ; many 
facts have appeared which contradict all their theories ; 
many of their prophecies have failed of fulfillment. They 
neither know nor care. The world has been moving 
steadily forward, with many struggles and much suffer- 
ing, along the dusty highroad of human progress ever 
since 1840 ; but the free trader, perched like a wee bird 
on the fence rail by the roadside, chirps and twitters his 
little song in bland unconsciousness of the great proces- 
sion which has been marching steadily onward for fifty 
years in a direction quite different from that upon which 
the Manchester school decided that it must move. 

Let us try, without prejudice, and frankly confessing 
the enormous complexity of the social and economic diffi- 
culties which face and perplex humanity — let us try, I 
say, to trace the course of the movement of mankind 
upon the great bottom principles involved in this ques- 
tion, and see whether we cannot get some light upon the 
particular phase of it which is now before us. 

The breakdown of the feudal system was the defeat of 
the forces of separatism, disorder, and petty tyrannies. 
The force which prevailed over feudalism was that which 
made for order and the consolidation of power. Law and 



94 THE TARIFF. 

order were in the interests of the Crown, which was the 
central authority, and of the great lower and middle 
classes of the population, who wished peace and quiet and 
who preferred one ruler to many. At the same time the 
great feudal nobility, with all their vices, had in their day 
acted as an important check upon the power of the Crown, 
and their overthrow meant the removal of this check. 
The dano-er to be apprehended from the destruction of the 
feudal system, a destruction so necessary to human pro- 
gress, was that the central authority would become too 
powerful, and that for a tyrannous oligarchy would be 
substituted a personal despotism. On the continent of 
Europe, and in England as well, this was the line of de- 
velopment which followed upon the fall of the feudal sys- 
tem. The powers of the Crown began to grow with great 
rapidity, freed as they were from the resistance which the 
great nobles had formerly made, while the people were 
not ready to appreciate the situation or offer any opposi- 
tion to the growth of royal power. In England the body 
of the people, who were by nature independent and impa- 
tient of control, soon learned their lesson. When the power 
of the Crown reached the point where Charles I under- 
took to set up a personal monarchy, the people were ready 
for the conflict. The great rebellion ensued, and all dan- 
ger of the establishment of a personal despotism in Eng- 
land disappeared with the execution of Charles at White- 
hall, and in the smoke of Cromwell's guns, when he won 
the " crowning mercy " at Worcester. From that period 
the English-speaking people everywhere have advanced 
steadily and with but little bloodshed to the complete con- 
trol of their own governments. 

On the continent of Europe the case was widely different. 
There, personal despotism was established almost un- 



THE TARIFF. 95 

checked, and Louis XIV was able to say truthfully that 
he was an absolute King — that he was the State. Such 
a development could have but one result, and the abuses 
of despotism went on until no remedy remained but a 
social and political convulsion. This came in the French 
Revolution, which shook the civilized world from one end 
to the other and plunged all Europe into war for a quarter 
of a century. It revolutionized not only government and 
society, but thought and opinion as well, and we still feel 
its effects. These personal governments which then were 
overthrown were, of course, paternal in their character ; 
that is, they interfered with the lives, the property, and 
the affairs of their subjects in every possible way. The 
physical revolt against them carried with it an intellectual 
revolt against state interference of any kind, and paternal- 
ism came to be regarded as the equivalent of the hideous 
despotisms which the French Revolution destroyed. 

This confusion of these two ideas was natural, and per- 
haps at the time wholesome. In any event, it had an im- 
mense effect upon the philosophy and theory of government, 
for out of this period came the doctrine that the least 
government is the best, and the economic theory known 
as laissez /aire and laissez aller. The pendulum under 
the influence of this great movement against personal 
government, as was to have been expected, swung with 
corresponding violence to the opposite extreme. Men 
swiftly concluded that, because the interference of the 
state under the monarchies of the eighteenth century was 
evil, the true secret of freedom, happiness, and success was 
to be found in going as far as possible in the opposite di- 
rection, in reducing government to its lowest terms, and 
in getting as near as possible to no government at all. In 
other words, the world in its political and economic theo- 



96 THE TARIFF. 

ries rushed from the system of tyrannous interference by 
a personal government, under which it had sorely suffered, 
to extreme individualism and unrestrained competition as 
a sure haven where all would be peace, gentleness, and pros- 
perity. All this was very natural, but, like all extremes, 
very dangerous, and, like all Utopias, was in practice very 
uncertain and disappointing. The theory that state inter- 
ference is always and necessarily a wholly bad thing, of 
which we must have as little as possible, was in reality a too 
hasty generalization. It depended on the proposition that 
state interference and paternalism as shown in the case of a 
personal monarchy were wholly bad. On this precise state 
of facts the let-alone theory in politics rested, and from it 
the same theory in economical questions took its widest ex- 
tension. The foundation was insecure, and the glittering 
formula soon began to break down. It could not do other- 
wise, for it depended on a half truth. Men began to per- 
ceive, as time went on and the steadyprogressof the demo- 
cratic movement was assured, that there was more than one 
kind of state, and that it did not at all follow because the 
meddling tyranny of a personal monarchy was bad that 
the limited and intelligent interference of every other kind 
of government must be bad too. The wide difference be- 
tween the action of a state composed of Louis XIV and 
a state composed of the people themselves began to be ap- 
parent. In proportion as this truth has grown visible to 
men, so has the reaction against state interference, which 
began at the close of the last century and culminated in 
the adoption of free trade by England, declined. 

Except to the English free trader and his imitators in 
this country, for whom history ended fifty years ago, and 
to whom the observation of historic and economic facts 
which do not fit their theory appears a mere impertinence. 



THE TARIFF. 97 

this change of opinion and advance of knowledge are very 
obvious. Men and nations have alike discovered that un- 
restrained individualism and unrestricted competition are 
capable of producing a social system quite as cruel and 
oppressive as the darkest forms of feudalism, to which 
some free-trade orators are fond of likening protection, 
apparently with the notion that feudalism was an economic 
policy. Having made this discovery, men have revolted 
against the doctrine which denied that any relief could be 
obtained by invoking the strength of the whole community 
united in government to remedy the glaring evils and mis- 
eries which unrestricted individualism and unrestrained 
competition were helpless to modify or cure. This revolt 
has been successful at various points, yet its importance 
rests not on its success, but on the fact that the let-alone 
theory has in this way been proved to be unsound in many 
directions. This fact is fatal, for if the general let-alone 
doctrine is not sound and correct at all points, it cannot be 
assumed to be correct at any. It is no longer sufficient to 
say that any given social or economic policy rests on the 
let-alone theory, for that theory has broken down com- 
pletely as a general truth, and therefore no part of it, and 
no expression of it, is necessarily correct. Free trade rests 
entirely on the let-alone doctrine — that is, upon the doc- 
trine that the least interference of the state is best ; or, 
in other words, that the state ought not to interfere at all 
in the affairs of its individual members, except to main- 
tain order at home or abroad, or in defense of public 
morals and public health ; and even these are logically in- 
fractions of the doctrine of absolute individualism. Free 
trade, comparatively speaking, is not a very large question. 
It is merely the expression in one limited direction of a 
much broader principle. If the let-alone theory is correct 



98 THE TARIFF. 

as a general economic principle, and if the experience and 
practice of mankind show that it Is correct, then free trade 
is of course correct as one of its parts. But if, on the other 
hand, the let-alone doctrine can be proved In many direc- 
tions to be incorrect, if it has been abandoned again and 
again in practice by the most civilized nations, then the 
presumption is against free trade or any other single ex- 
pression of the central principle. Let us see, first, how 
far this let-alone doctrine has been invaded since it found 
its last expression in England a half-century ago. 

In the direction of free trade itself the case is very read- 
ily summed up. England has maintained that tariff system 
since she adopted it. France, under the Second Empire, 
perhaps the worst government which that country has ever 
had, made a spasmodic effort to imitate England's example. 
It was, however, quickly abandoned, and France is to-day 
a country of high protection. It may be added that France 
is the strongest country in the world, except our own and 
Great Britain, both financially and economically. The 
wealth of the people was demonstrated in a most marvelous 
manner when the French, out of their own savings, paid 
the enormous indemnity to Germany after the Franco- 
Prussian war, so that to-day the public debt of France is 
practically held by her own citizens. Without going further 
into details, it may be said that no civilized nation has 
adopted the English system. All are protectionist countries. 
Even England's own colonies, where her doctrines might 
be supposed to have peculiar strength, have all, one after 
another, abandoned the free-trade system and are to-day 
protectionist. I am quite aware that the free trader sets 
aside all opinion that is not English as quite worthless, but 
I do not think that intelligent persons who are unswayed 
by the provincial subservience to English opinion charac- 



THE TARIFF. 99 

teristic of most American free traders can afford to do 
this. The general opinion of mankind to which Jefferson 
appealed in the Declaration of Independence must always 
be regarded, and has great weight in determining what men 
think is practically best for their respective countries. If 
that opinion is considered, it shows that the experience and 
the practice of civilized men are adverse to the let-alone 
doctrine as expressed in free trade. 

But, as I have said already, free trade is only a part of 
a principle ; and if free trade is founded upon the rock of 
everlasting truth, the doctrine of which it is the expression 
must hold good in every direction. Looked at in this way, 
the practical abandonment of the theory, which is proof 
that it is not an economic truth and that it does not in hu- 
man opinion work beneficially, is overwhelming. It is not 
necessary to enter into the long list of legislation, which 
in its very being flatly contradicts the soundness of the 
let-alone doctrine. A very few examples will suffice. I will 
take England for consideration, because England is still the 
great exemplar of the theory. If the let-alone theory is cor- 
rect, why does England pass factory acts and mine acts ? 
It may be said that this is done for moral or sanitary rea- 
sons, but this explanation is insufficient. It is perhaps pos- 
sible to stretch it so as to cover the labor of young children, 
but it certainly cannot cover the regulation of the hours of 
labor for adults. It is a monstrous invasion of the let-alone 
doctrine to say that it is economically correct for govern- 
ment to interfere with the number of hours that a man or 
woman should work either in mines or factories. Surely, 
under that doctrine people should have the right to sell 
their labor when and how they please. Yet the English 
government is interfering in this precise direction, and the 
free trader does not live in England who is hardy enough 



100 THE TARIFF. 

to rise up and demand the repeal of these acts because they 
interfere with individual freedom or the doctrine on which 
free trade is founded. At this very moment the English 
Parliament is discussing the employers' liability act. Either 
the let-alone doctrine is radically unsound, or this legisla- 
tion is as gross an invasion of it as ever was attempted. On 
the theory of the free trader, what right has the govern- 
ment to interfere between the employer and the employed? 
By so doing they set at naught one of their most precious 
shibboleths of "supply and demand." Yet the Liberal 
party, led until recently by the venerable statesman who 
believed that all financial and economic knowledge culmi- 
nated fifty years ago in the Manchester school, is endeav- 
oring to force through this very act of employers' liability. 
What becomes of the let-alone doctrine in the Irish land 
legislation, where the government takes land from the land- 
lord and sells it to the tenant? No greater interference of 
government was ever undertaken, no more gaping breach in 
the let-alone theory was ever made ; yet both political par- 
ties in Great Britain have supported or enforced in turn 
this land legislation of Ireland. 

Let us come a little nearer to free trade. There is no 
form of protection so extreme as a bounty. Yet England 
has fostered and built up her shipping by a system of boun- 
ties, under the name of mail subsidies, which has been of 
the most extreme character. I shall give elsewhere a table 
which shows in detail what she has done in this direction. 
It is enough to say here that from 1848 to 1889, inclusive, 
England spent in mail subsidies $190,027,789. It is per- 
fectly idle, it is worse than begging the question, to say that 
these are not protective bounties because they are called 
mail subsidies. To pretend, indeed, that these subsidies are 
not protection in a high form is not merely a subterfuge, 



THE TARIFF. 101 

it is a pure falsehood. Such vast sums for such a purpose 
are an absurdity on any other theory. If proof were needed 
of their true character, it may be found in the discussion 
which arose when, under the last administration, we en- 
tered on a policy of mail subsidies and the encouragement 
of American steamships as an auxiliary naval force. Our 
measures were identical with those of England; the Re- 
publican pai'ty adopted them as measures of protection to 
develop our merchant marine, and would not have enacted 
them if they had not been of that character. All the 
American free traders who had been eagerly saying that 
England did not protect her commerce or give it bounties, 
that she only paid mail subsidies, cried out against our 
mail subsidies as another example of Republican protection. 
If England's mail subsidies are not protective bounties, then 
ours were not, and they should have been cordially sup- 
ported by English-minded and free-trade persons in this 
country. But our mail subsidies were protective, and so are 
England's ; and no one knew it so well as England, who 
found in our policy fresh cause of hostility to the Republi- 
can and of affection for the Democratic party. The only 
difference between the two systems was that we honestly 
declared our subsidies to be protection, while England 
canted about hers, in order that the faith of those who work 
in her interests in other countries might not be shaken. If 
you would have further light on this, contrast what we have 
paid for carrying the mails with what England has paid, 
and you will see what the actual cost of mail transportation 
is. The vast sums spent by England in addition to the ac- 
tual cost of mail transportation are protective bounties, and 
high at that. I think her policy in this direction has been 
very wise. While she maintains free trade, because she 
thinks it will pay, and proclaims in the name of truth and 



102 THE TARIFF. 

righteousness that everybody else should have free trade and 
open their markets to her goods because she knows that will 
pay, too, she is very careful to use protection in its most ex- 
treme form where she is sure that it will pay her best of all. 
Nothing is more laughable, it may be said in this connection, 
than to see the way in which the convinced American free 
trader is taken in by this English cant shrewdly used for 
business purposes. England is always talking in a strident 
voice about her generosity and her anxiety that other na- 
tions should adopt this or that system because it will be 
beneficial to them. The truth is that England as a nation 
is selfish, as every other nation is. She masks her selfish- 
ness in loud protestations of complete disinterestedness, but 
why anybody who was not born in England should believe 
these protestations I have never been able to see. If, how- 
ever, her general theory on which she rests free trade is 
correct, then her system of subsidies for steamship lines is 
all wrong. If the theory is incorrect, as she proves it in 
practice, then it does not lie in the mouth of the nation 
which protects commerce to talk about the eternal verity 
of her free-trade policy. 

You can find laws in other civilized countries similar to 
those in England to which I have referred, but I will not 
dwell upon them. I will come nearer home. The pub- 
lic-school system and the post office are absolute violations 
of the let-alone theory. Yet who disputes their value, or 
who proposes to give them up ? In almost every State of 
the Union there are statutes regulating the hours of labor, 
employers' liability, the management of railroads, and a 
thousand other acts great and small which interfere more 
or less directly with all the force of the government in 
the affairs of individuals. It is the same with the nation 
as with the states. Our statute book is filled with provi- 



THE TARIFF. 103 

sions which utterly disregard the let-alone theory of govern- 
ment, and every time we dredge a harbor or deepen a 
river or open a canal we set it at naught. 

There is no need to go on and pile up examples. They 
occur every day, and stare at us from every page of our 
constitutions and statutes. If the let-alone doctrine on 
which free trade rests is correct, then these laws, from 
those providing for public education down, are all wrong. 
They should be swept from the statute books. In the 
jargon of the Democratic orator, they are fetters upon 
freedom. They set at defiance the darling epigrams that 
the free trader carries in his pocket and produces year in 
and year out, with the comfortable belief that they are 
both new and true, instead of being the damaged utter- 
ances of half a century ago. Let us look for a moment 
at two of these precious aphorisms, these beautiful ex- 
pressions of the let-alone doctrine to the effect that you 
must " buy in the cheapest and sell in the dearest market," 
and that everything must be settled by the unrestrained 
and unqualified economic law of supply and demand. Let 
us see how these profound antitheses bear the test of ac- 
tual legislation in the United States. We have upon our 
statute books at this moment a law to prevent the impor- 
tation of contract labor, a law very imperfectly enforced, 
I am sorry to say. What put that law upon the statute 
book ? The demand of the laboring men of the United 
States that they should be protected against that form 
of competition. The workingraen of the United States 
called for and secured this legislation in order to prevent 
the lowering of their rates of wages by the introduction 
of large masses of labor, which brought with them by con- 
tract the rate of wages of other countries where wages 
were lower than in the United States. On what portion 



104 THE TARIFF. 

of the let-alone doctrine do you rest the economic correct- 
ness of these laws, suppoi-ted by both political parties and 
questioned in their soundness by no one ? If the free-trade 
doctrine be sound, by what principle do you step in and 
say to the employers of the United States, " You shall 
not buy your labor in the cheapest market"? If that 
principle of buying in the cheapest market is a sound 
principle, it is just as applicable to a manufacturer or to 
any employer of labor as it is to any one else. But we 
properly deny them the unrestricted right because in 
this instance we recognize in practice that the doctrine 
is absurd. No grosser violation of the general princi- 
ple on which free trade rests can be found than this, 
and yet there is not a Democrat or a free trader with 
any responsibility who would dare to rise in this Senate 
or anywhere else and ask for the repeal of these con- 
tract-labor laws. If the let-alone principle is right, these 
laws are wrong. If these laws are right, — and they are 
thoroughly right, — then the let-alone principle is fatally 
wrong in that direction ; and if it is wrong in one direc- 
tion, there is no reason to assume that it is right in any 
other. 

Take another case. Some years ago, in response to the 
workingmen of California, this country entered upon a 
policy of Chinese exclusion. The men who began it 
were denounced. The scholars, the economists, the philan- 
thropists, the professors, the colleges, at the start were 
all against it ; but the workingmen triumphed, and to-day 
no party and no representative of any party dares to sug- 
gest the free admission of the Chinese. I have heard free 
traders say that we kept out the Chinese because they 
were not clean and their habits were not good. Never in 
the world was there a great popular uprising to keep men 



THE TARIFF. 105 

out of a country because they were dirty or because their 
habits were unattractive. The trouble was that the Chi- 
nese brought with them a rate of wages with which our 
workingmen with their standard of living could not com- 
pete. The instinct of the laboring men of California was 
right. They saw in the Chinaman a competitor who would 
drag them down. They demanded his exclusion, and we 
shut him out. Australia, an English colony, where the 
labor organizations have exercised a greater influence per- 
haps than anywhere in the world — Australia, too, has 
shut him out. How do you make it agree with the doc- 
trine of buying in the cheapest market to exclude the 
Chinese labor from this country ? In China, as the cheap- 
est labor market and the greatest reservoir of low-priced 
labor in the world, on the theory of free trade we should 
have the right to buy our labor ; and yet everybody is 
agreed that it is well to put a stop to it by law. What 
becomes of the precious theory of free trade in the face of 
a fact like that ? We are right to exclude the Chinaman, 
who brings his cheap labor with him and lowers our stand- 
ard of living and degrades our working people. If it is 
right to do so, then by what theory do you admit free of 
duty the product of this same Chinaman made in his own 
country to compete with our product here ? The product 
brings its rate of wages with it just as much as the man, 
and ocean freight no longer gives protection. If it is 
right to exclude the Chinaman, it is right to exclude the 
chair cane which he makes, and which brings his rate of 
wages and standard of life to compete with our working- 
men just as surely as if the Chinaman came over himself 
and made his chair cane in New York or Philadelphia. 
The underlying proposition of the free trader is that it is 
idle to attempt to modify by legislation the working of 



106 THE TARIFF. 

immutable economic laws. He forgets, or has never 
learned, that scarcely anything is immutable into which 
enter the heart and mind and emotions of humanity. The 
personal equation plays a large part in all things which 
human beings affect by their own actions. " Kaise wages 
by law, make yourself richer by taxation," says the free 
trader, bringing out again his little collection of epigrams. 
" It is like lifting yourselves by your boot straps." And 
then he fancies that he has answered the whole case. 
And while he thinks he has settled the universe in this 
simple fashion, the plain sense of the American working- 
men has shut out Chinese labor and contract labor, and 
will in no long time shut out the imported products of 
that same labor. 

Let us pass beyond the action of the government in 
regard to the let-alone theory, and consider the action of 
men. Let us look for a moment at the attitude of the in- 
dividual man when the let-alone doctrine meets him in 
practice. Do workingmen wait and rely upon the oper- 
ation of these so-called economic laws on which free trade 
rests to regulate their affairs ? They combine, as they 
ought to combine, to bring about an increase in their wages, 
to elevate their own condition, to prevent by artificial 
means destructive competition. Every labor union that is 
formed flies in the face of the doctrine of free trade. But, 
none the less, men are going to form them. They wield 
to-day a vast power, they will keep on growing, and they 
exist because they represent the instinct of human nature 
to imite for self-protection. No free trader dares to de- 
nounce them as infractions of his theory. His theory, 
then, is either false or cowardly when it faces a trades 
union; in reality it is both. I am aware that one wise- 
acre, repeating what another wiseacre has said, will reply, 



THE TARIFF. 107 

"You admit labor free while you cry for protection against 
manufactured goods." It is almost as easy to answer this 
statement as to make it. In the first place, it is not true 
that we admit all labor free. Some we exclude absolutely, 
like contract and Chinese labor. In the second place, the 
labor that we do admit free comes from Europe, and the im- 
migrant from Europe does not bring his rate of wages with 
him. On the contrary, a few weeks or afew months make him 
as anxious for good wages as his American brethren. Our 
standard of living becomes his, and he ceases to lower our 
rate of living and modes of life. The European immigrant 
does not bring his rate of wages with him; but the bale 
of goods from Europe does bring its rate of wages, and 
the bale of goods is not susceptible to the influences of 
association or to standards of living. The bale of goods 
brings its rate of wages with it and keeps it, and works 
in that way towards the lowering of all American rates. 
Lastly, it is no argument to say that because you do not 
have protection in one direction where it would be good, 
you should give it up in another where it is also good. So 
I freely admit that our failure to give suitable protection 
against the labor which comes in the human being is a 
grave defect. The principle embodied in the contract-labor 
law should be enlarged, because the protection we now 
give by the duty on the bale of goods should be extended. 
There is no greater need at this time than stringent laws 
to sift and restrict the immigration to this country for the 
protection of our rates of wages and of the quality of our 
citizenship. This protection against excessive European 
immigration will come, as the exclusion of the Chinese and 
contract labor came, from the good sense and unerring in- 
stinct of the people, which will lead them to measures to 
guard their homes, their future, their race, and their civi- 



108 THE TARIFF. 

lization against forms of competition which they cannot 
meet if it is left unrestricted. 

What, then, becomes of a doctrine which all the legisla- 
tures in the world continually disregard ? What becomes 
of a doctrine with a hundred violations staring it in the 
face from every statute book, violations which even its de- 
votees support or accept ? What becomes of a doctrine 
that the instinct of mankind in his efforts for improvement 
sets at naught? All history proves that the let-alone doc- 
trine cannot stand the shock of facts or the ordeal of prac- 
tice. The truth is that in these modern times the civilized 
world is entering upon a new period. The temperate zone, 
in which experience shows that the most highly civilized 
races, to which we belong, can alone thrive and multiply, 
is very nearly absorbed. There is still much to be con- 
verted to the uses of man, but the limits are well within 
sidit. Over against us are the crowded masses of the 
tropics. Relieved in many instances by the rule of our 
superior races from the effect of the wars, famines, and 
floods which formerly decimated them, they are multiply- 
ing with enormous rapidity. In Natal, for example, when 
the English first took possession, the proportion of blacks 
to whites was something like three to one. To-day, under 
the strong British rule, and after a large British immigra- 
tion, the blacks are to the whites as thirteen to one. The 
same rule holds good everywhere, and the crowded masses 
of the tropical regions are becoming ever more crowded. 
They have standards far below ours. They live under con- 
ditions of climate and habits impossible to us. Millions 
of men in India subsist on from fourteen to twenty dollars 
a year, and those men in India as well as in .Tapan are be- 
ginning to manufacture, thus closing to us theirown markets 
and threatening our markets with an industrial competition 



THE TARIFF. 109 

which is deadly if you do not shut it out. You may lower 
wages and reduce costs beyond the wildest dreams of the 
free-trade orator, and in this temperate zone, where we 
and those like us dwell, you never can meet that tropical 
standard of living. Are we to sit down with our great 
civilization and bring about free trade, in order to be 
gradually overwhelmed by the labor of the tropics after a 
desperate struggle with the overcrowded people of our own 
race in Europe? Are we to be told that the laws of sup- 
ply and demand, of buying in the cheapest and selling in 
the dearest markets, are eternal truths, and that everything 
would be right if we only adhered to them? Are we 
to accept these shattered dogmas of fifty years ago, and 
yield without a struggle to the ruin of our labor and the 
degradation of our standards of living? 

Very fortunately there is a sound instinct in the great 
races who have made civilization, which protects them 
from such visions as these. They will not submit ; they 
have already begun to resist. They have excluded the 
Chinaman from Australia and the United States. They 
will exclude every sort of low labor brought by the man 
himself, and they will in process of time equalize that 
same labor with their own by proper duties, when it is 
brought down the ship's gangway, not in the form of a 
human being, but in the form of a bale of goods, and car- 
rying the same low rate of wages. The law of self-preserva- 
tion is a higher law than any that political economy has 
ever invented, and, although it is the outcome of human 
nature, it is immutable. That law will in the lapses of the 
years, if not now, give us the protection which the free 
trader playing with his wrinkled little puppets would deny. 

The fundamental error of the supporters of the let-alone 
theory, as I have already said, is that they believe that 



110 THE TARIFF. 

wliat they call economic laws are fixed and certain, like 
those which govern the motions of the stars. But, although 
men, like stars, may differ from one another in glory, they 
are unlike stars in most other respects. Laws which are 
grounded upon the action of humanity are not fixed, but 
empirical. With rare exceptions, the most that we can 
hope for in this field is an approximation, some general 
rule with many exceptions. Human policies of society or 
government are subject to infinite variations. That which 
is most wise at one time may be most unwise at another. 
That which is excellent for one people would be ruin to 
another. Soil, climate, situation, the size of the country, 
the race and character of the people, the conditions of 
the moment, and the possibilities of the future must all 
be considered in the adoption of any policy. The states 
and the people who have recognized this great controlling 
truth, and have put a priori theories behind them, have 
been the successful and governing races of the world. 
The Abbe Sieyes drew one ideal constitution after another 
for France. They were all perfect in theory, and they all 
perished from the face of the earth. Washington and his 
associates made but one constitution. It embodied few 
theories and much practice. It had inconsistencies and 
compromises, but it met the wants of the time and of the 
people, and it has stood strong and flourishing for a hun- 
dred years. The free trader is like the French Abb^ ; he 
would bind human development in the tight bandages of 
a theory, without regard to the infinite complexity of all 
things pertaining to humanity. He may by so doing attain 
symmetry, but it will be the symmetry of the Egyptian 
mummy, and the result will be quite as lifeless. That 
which applies to constitutions and government applies also 
to economic policies. We must look for guidance not to 



THE TARIFF. Ill 

closet theories, but to the great book of history and ex- 
perience, and see what has been done and attempted and 
what results have been achieved. Men are learning the 
lessons of history. They have long since put those lessons 
into practice. They are now beginning to formulate them 
as a theory, and to understand the philosophy which under- 
lies them. It is apparent to all whose eyes are not her- 
metically sealed by the traditions of a fading past that, 
because a personal monarchy or state socialism is bad and 
oppressive, it does not therefore follow that unrestrained 
individualism and unrestricted competition are always 
and everywhere the only good things. Because some state 
interference is hurtful, all forms of it are not necessarily 
so. It is a question of degree, not of kind. Somewhere be- 
tween the extremes of unlimited individualism on the one 
hand and personal monarchy or state socialism on the 
other can be found the golden mean, in which it is possible 
to use the united power of the community expressed in 
the state for the benefit of mankind and the protection of 
civilization. 

Just how far we can go profitably in the use or in the 
refusal to use the powers of the state can be determined 
only by patient and cautious experiment, through which 
all the slow steps of civilization have been thus far pain- 
fully won. It is no doubt true that it is a grievous mistake 
to suppose that we can cure by law every evil which afflicts 
humanity, and that it is a weakness to look helplessly to 
legislation for everything we desire. But it is equally 
true, and has been proved in practice, that legislation and 
government can in many cases be employed with advan- 
tage to help the affairs of men. In other words, the ag- 
gregate power of the community can sometimes bring 
beneficial results which individuals by their divided efforts 



112 THE TARIFF. 

can never reach. If it be said, as it always is said, that 
this is a futile attempt to overbear natural laws by arti- 
ficial devices, the answer is that the so-called economic 
laws are neither natural nor final; that statute law can 
often modify or call into action economic laws, and is con- 
stantly doing so, and that the whole fabric of human 
civilization to which those supposed laws are thought to 
apply is artificial. If we put away from us everything 
that is artificial, everything which man has established by 
means of law and custom, we should sink back to the 
condition of the men of the caves and the river drift. 

As we see those animals whose instinct compels them to live 
in society and obey a chief are most capable of improvement, 
so it is vrith races of mankind. Whether we look at it as a cause 
or a consequence, the more civilized always have the most arti- 
ficial governments. In Tierra del Fuego, until some chief shall 
arise with power sufficient to secure any acquired advantage, 
such as the domesticated animals, it seems scarcely possible that 
the political state of the country can be improved.-^ 

These are the words of Charles Darwin, a very great 
man, and one who has exercised a more profound influ- 
ence upon human thought than pi-obably any man who has 
lived in the nineteenth century. He marks here as char- 
acteristic of savages in the very lowest scale of humanity 
an absolutely unrestrained individualism, and points out 
that all civilization is highly artificial. Speaking with 
the unimpassioned voice of science, he formulates a great 
truth. 

Everything that we have which makes up our civilization 
is the outcome of custom hardened into law and public 
opinion, or of law, pure and simple, embodying the aspira- 

' Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle, vol. i, p. 296. 



THE TARIFF. 113 

tions and the hopes of men. Government and property, 
the sanctity of the family, the bonds of marriage, the edu- 
cation of children, the punishment of crimes, are all arti- 
ficial, the slow upbuilding by man through ages of weary 
experiment and disheartening failures. From the most 
sacred rights of humanity to trivial questions of manners 
and of dress, all is artificial; all is the work of man's brains 
seeking to do by the concentrated force of society what the 
poor scattered atoms of individuals could never accomplish 
alone. In view of the marvelous work which men by their 
union with other men have been able to achieve, how pitiful 
is a doctrine which would hold that this united force, which 
has raised us slowly from the deej) darkness of prehistoric 
times, must be reduced to its lowest proportions, and that 
the less we employ the agency which has raised us, the 
agency of the united force of a nation or community, the 
better it will be for us. How more than absurd to stand 
in the midst of civilization, the work of our hands, artifi- 
cial throughout, created by men acting in large masses 
and represented by states and governments, and say that 
the laws of that civilization made in this way and with 
such a history demand the absolute negation and abandon- 
ment of the very power which created the entire fabric, 
merely because that power is capable of abuse and can be 
forced to an evil extreme, like personal despotism or state 
socialism. It is a marvel that such a doctrine should have 
had any measure of success for fifty years even in theory, 
for it has never been accepted, except in a small degree, 
by any people in practice. Men have always employed 
their united force, which for convenience we call the state, 
sometimes wisely, sometimes unwisely, to secure or to try 
to secure ends for which their individual strength was un- 
equal. There has never been a time when they have not 



114 THE TARIFF. 

done so. There never will be ; for the instinct which first 
united a band of naked savages for mutual defense is undy- 
ing, and is as strong to-day as ever, and far more intelligent. 
The let-alone theory, as a complete guide, when tried by 
the broad history of man, fails utterly. It has no support. 
Tried even by the standards of the limited application of it 
attempted in this century in new directions it fails, and can 
have no other fate, for it gives the lie to all that men have 
done and suffered in order to reach the point they have 
now attained, and sets at naught all the teachings of his- 
tory. If, then, as I have said, the general doctrine breaks 
down, no single expression of it can stand except on its 
own merits. The general doctrine of let-alone in govern- 
ment has been invaded, abandoned, and disproved in hun- 
dreds of cases ever since it reached its highest point fifty 
years ago. Free trade is one expression of the let-alone 
doctrine. The general theory cannot sustain it. It must, 
therefore, stand on its own merits alone as one expression 
of a principle broken at a hundred points, and must prove, 
by the benefits it confers, its right to exist as an exception 
to the great law of human development through which all 
civilization has been reached. 

The next point, therefore, is to determine whether free 
trade, contrary as it is to the general principles on which 
human society has been built up, can justify its existence. 
We can settle this by examining the results of free trade ; 
and, as only one civilized country has adopted it, that is 
easily done. England did not take up free trade because 
she was suddenly convinced of its scientific truth and be- 
lieved that it ought therefore to prevail, even if the heavens 
fell. She adopted it, as nations generally adopt an eco- 
nomic policy, because she was satisfied, after much dis- 
cussion, that it would pay. It is important to us to know 



THE TARIFF. 115 

under what conditions she adopted it, whether our condi- 
tions are like hers, and whether in the long run free trade 
has proved such a benefit to England as to make it obvious 
that it must be beneficial to every other nation. First, as 
to the conditions. England is a small country, with a 
limited agricultural area and no great variety of natural 
resources. The United States is a very large country, 
with an enormous agricultural area and an almost un- 
equaled variety of natural resources. The population of 
England fifty years ago was dense. It is still denser to- 
day. The population of the United States at large, tried 
by European standards, is sparse. Thus we see at the 
outset that the natural conditions, and those of population 
also, in England and the United States are wholly different. 
At the time of the free-trade movement England had been 
living and had built up her industries and her merchant 
marine under a system of high protection, which had en- 
dured for centuries. All the industries, practically, which 
she could hope to have were firmly established, and the 
skilled labor necessary to carry them on had been devel- 
oped. We, on the other hand, have had protection of a 
varying kind, and with some large intervals of low tariff, 
for less than a century. Many of our industries are not 
yet firmly established nor the necessary labor for them 
fully developed, while many others, to the flourishing ex- 
istence of which there are no natural obstacles, do not 
exist at all. England invented the steam engine, and in 
1840 had carried the application of steam power to indus- 
trial production far beyond the point reached at that time 
by any other nation. This lead in the application of steam 
power gave her an enormous advantage in cheapness of 
production, and put her far beyond the reach of competi- 
tion. We to-day have no such advantage, for the applica- 



116 THE TARIFF, 

tion of stGcara power to industrial production is now at the 
equal command of all the great civilized nations. 

The most important difference, however, still remains 
to be considered. England to-day and fifty years ago 
was unable to feed herself. She was obliged to import 
food products or starve her people. At the same time 
she had corn laws, which levied a heavy tax on the great 
food staples. This tax — for, as I shall presently show, 
it was not a protective duty — benefited only the land own- 
ers of England, a small and in the main an aristocratic 
and very rich class. It put a heavy burden upon all the 
people of England, and especially upon the industrial 
classes. The great popular agitation, which ended with 
the establishment of free trade, began in the attack on the 
corn laws, and at the time the repeal of the corn laws was 
regarded as the leading feature of the free-trade move- 
ment. In reality that repeal was demanded, and would 
be demanded to-day as part of the policy of protection. 
The protectionist theory is to discriminate by duties in 
favor of every article which can be grown or manufactured 
in the protected country in sufficient quantities for the 
use of the people ; and everything which cannot be grown 
or manufactured in sufficient quantities, according to the 
protectionist should be placed upon the free list. Wheat 
could not be raised in England in sufficient quantities 
to feed her people. There was no ground for giving a 
bounty, as has been done so largely by European nations 
to stimulate the production of sugar, for it was a physi- 
cal impossibility to raise corn and wheat beyond certain 
well-defined limits. A certain pi-oportion of food products 
had to be imported, and, as the importation could not be 
avoided, there was no possibility of lowering the prices by 
developing a home competition, and the duties imposed 



THE TARIFF. 117 

became a direct tax which no one could escape. There- 
fore, according to the protectionist theory, better under- 
stood to-day than it was then, the English corn laws ought 
to have been swept away long before it was actually done. 
There is no defense for their existence in protection. If 
it is possible to defend a tax upon food products which 
cannot be raised in the country in sufficient quantities for 
its needs, that defense is not to be found in protection, 
but in free trade, which in England to-day taxes coffee 
and tea. Hence it follows that the repeal of the corn laws, 
which established free trade in England, has absolutely 
no bearing on the question now before us, except as an 
example of the soundness of the protectionist theory. 
Moreover, it must be remembered that we are in no way 
dependent, as England was, on outside supplies of food 
products. We not only raise all we need and all we ever 
shall be likely to need, but we are large exporters. There 
is still another side to this matter, which must not b« 
passed over, as it has an important bearing upon the ac- 
tion of England. The English manufacturer had reached 
the point where the miseries of the industrial population 
were such that it was necessary either to raise wages or to 
run the risk of revolution, which was foreshadowed in the 
Chartist movement. The English manufacturer raised 
wages by repealing the corn laws, and thus cheapening 
the food supply. It was an easy matter to excite popular 
feeling against the corn laws, for there never was a sub- 
ject so susceptible of successful popular agitation. The 
class against which it was directed and which benefited 
by the corn laws was unpopular, numerically small, and, 
although still powerful, was so crippled politically by the 
reform bill of 1832 that it could not oppose a successful 
resistance. The manufacturer raised his wages at the ex- 



118 THE TARIFF. 

pense of the English landowner. The industrial popula- 
tion was directly benefited. The manufacturer was not 
obliged to increase wages out of his own pocket, and the 
farmer and the agricultural laborer were no worse off, be- 
cause the corn laws were not protective duties to them and 
they received none of the benefit which accrued to the 
comparatively few landowners of England. The manufac- 
turers, having carried their point on the corn laws, and with 
a full sense of the advantage of their position owing to 
centuries of protection and to their early application of 
steam power, were not only ready but willing to remove 
all other duties, believing that their home market was safe, 
and that free trade would give a wider circulation and 
hence an increased value to their products. 

Thus it was that the manufacturers of England with 
practical unanimity petitioned Parliament for the removal 
of all protective duties. These English manufacturers 
did not take this step because they thought that a scien- 
tific truth ought to prevail, but because they believed it to 
be for their own best interests in the direction of a money 
profit. Their opinion deserved to be, and was, regarded 
by Parliament. Contrast their attitude with that of 
our own manufacturers to-day. Our manufacturers with 
practical unanimity favor protection, and are opposed to 
free trade, and their opinion ought to be regarded by us 
as of great importance in the wisest business settlement 
of this question. The reply to this always is that our man- 
ufacturers sustain protection because they are selfish and 
make money by it. It is undoubtedly true that the manu- 
facturer sustains protection because he hopes to make 
money. That is the object of business, and the number 
of persons who are in business with any other purpose is, 
I think, extremely small. If, however, the American 



THE TARIFF. 119 

manufacturer does not make money, it is quite certain that 
he will not employ labor, and therefore the workingmen 
will not make money either. Our manufacturers believe 
that under free trade they must either go out of business 
or reduce labor costs. They naturally do not care to do 
the former, for that is ruin ; and they are very unwilling to 
try the latter, because reducing labor costs means lower- 
ing wages, which means in turn vast industrial disturb- 
ances ; and that is ruin too, or something very near it. How 
widely different is our situation to-day from that of Eng- 
land fifty years ago, so far as the manufacturers are con- 
cerned ! Most striking of all these differences, moreover, 
is the fact that, while the English Parliament listened to 
English manufacturers, a majority of the Amei'ican Con- 
gress not only turns a deaf ear to American manufac- 
turers, but treats them as if they were enemies of their 
country. 

Having found that the conditions in England at the 
time of the adoption of free trade were wholly unlike our 
conditions here to-day, it now remains to inquire whether 
the English policy has produced results which make it 
beyond question the proper policy for every other country. 
After the adoption of free trade those who brought it 
about immediately proclaimed, in the fashion of the Eng- 
lish when they have entered upon some scheme which they 
think profitable, that the new system was a great and eter- 
nal truth ; that every other nation ought to adopt it ; that 
every one who did not agree with them was either vicious 
or ignorant, and probably both. This outcry had but little 
effect upon other nations, but in the United States there 
is a class of persons who are still intellectually in the colo- 
nial stage of development, and who are sadly distressed 
by any disagreement with the views of England. Hence 



120 THE TARIFF. 

has arisen among us a free-trade propaganda. It was sus- 
tained at first by the existence of slave labor, which con- 
demned a large section of our country to the production 
of a single great staple, and which, where it flourished, 
checked all industrial development. With the fall of 
slavery the gospel of free trade passed out of sight, and 
only in late years has it regained some of its lost ground. 
But now that, sustained by a desire for sectional retalia- 
tion, it again has a political standing, we have a right to 
demand, when it asks us to imitate the British policy, an 
exhibition of British results. 

I have referred to the acclamation with which the adop- 
tion of free trade was hailed in England. The clamor 
grew so loud that it seemed as if one general feeling of 
delight and satisfaction pervaded the whole people. The 
classes who were directly benefited, or thought they were 
benefited, by free trade were loudly vocal, while the masses 
were silent. Yet with all this apparent unanimity, one 
of the greatest men then living in England, unbribed by 
mercantile profits, unawed by the noise of Birmingham 
and Manchester, and looking with prescient eyes beyond 
the passing day, announced to the unheeding world about 
him that there was no divine salvation in free trade. 
Here is what Thomas Carlyle said in the very heyday of 
the Manchester school, and his words may well be pon- 
dered, as showing how far short the new movement came, 
even at that moment, of fulfilling its promises: — 

The world, with its Wealth of Nations, Supply and Demand, 
and such like, has of late days been terribly inattentive to that 
question of work and wages. We will not say the poor world 
has retrograded even here ; we will say rather, the world has 
been rushing on with such fiery animation to get work and ever 
more work done, it has had no time to think of dividing the 



THE TARIFF. 121 

wages ; and lias merely left them to be scrambled for by the law 
of the stronger, law of supply and demand, law of laissez faire, 
and other idle laws and un-laws, saying, in its dire haste to get 
the work done, " That is well enough." ^ 

All this dire misery, therefore ; all this of our poor workhouse 
workmen, of our chartisms, trade strikes, corn laws, Toryisms, 
and the general downbreak of laissez faire in these days — 
may we not regard it as a voice from the dumb bosom of nature, 
saying to us : " Behold, su])ply and demand is not the one law 
of nature ; cash payment is not the sole nexus of man with man 
— how far from it ! Deep, far deeper than supply and demand, 
are laws, obligations, sacred as man's life itself ; these also, if 
you will continue to do work, you shall now learn and obey. 
He that will learn them, behold, Nature is on his side ; he shall 
yet work and prosper with noble rewards. He that will not 
learn them. Nature is against him ; he shall not be able to do 
work in Nature's empire — not in hers. Perpetual mutiny, con- 
tention, hatred, isolation, execration, shall wait on his footsteps, 
till all men discern that the thing which he attains, however 
golden it look to be, is not success, but the want of success. " ^ 

With our present system of individual Mammonism and gov- 
ernment by laissez faire, this nation cannot live. And if in the 
priceless interim some new life and healing be not found, there 
is no second respite to be counted on. The shadow on the dial 
advances thenceforth without pausing. What can government 
do ? This that they call " organizing labor " is, if well under- 
stood, the problem of the whole future, for all who will in future 
pretend to govern men. * 

England has many more doubters of the truth of free 
trade now than she had then. If Thomas Carlyle were 
to come back to life, instead of crying in the wilderness 
against the "calico millennium," he would find many allies 
even in his native land. Among others, no less a person 

» Past and Present, p. 26. ^ Id. p. 232. 3 Id. p. 318. 



122 THE TARIFF. 

than a late prime minister of England, Lord Salisbury, 
who has not hesitated to sneer in public at the dogmas 
of free trade. And if Carlyle were to look across the 
North Sea to the land of one of his heroes, he would find 
another German, Prince Bismarck, worthy to stand by the 
side of the great Frederick, declaring that the prosperity of 
the United States was largely due to the policy of protection, 
and himself embodying that policy in the legislation of the 
mio-hty empire which he has created. According to the 
Manchester school, free trade was to become straightway 
universal, and was to bring in the place of war peace on 
earth and good will among men. Free trade has not be- 
come universal, for no nation but England has adopted it, 
and England herself has had a war on her hands on an 
average of about once a year ever since. As prophets of 
peace and universal free trade, the Manchester school has 
been a failure. 

Let us turn now to the immediate effect upon England. 
That the repeal of the corn laws, which was in accordance 
with protectionist theories, was of great benefit to the Eng- 
lish industrial population cannot be questioned. But the 
important point is to know whether free trade by itself 
has been able to maintain wages and to keep the working 
people of England more contented and better provided 
than they are elsewhere. On this subject I propose to 
quote the testimony of Mr. J. C. Fielden before the royal 
commission on the precious metals in 1887. Mr. Fielden 
is a peculiarly valuable witness, for he is an expert on the 
subject of labor, a free trader, and attributes the facts to 
which he testifies solely to the currency question. Mr. 
Fielden went into a cotton mill at thirteen years of age, 
and in 1887 he had been connected with the cotton trade 
for thirty-six years. He is a cotton manufacturer, the 



THE TARIFF. 123 

manager of a large mercantile business in Manchester, 
has been connected with all movements in the cotton dis- 
tricts among the working classes since 1859, and has also 
been the arbitrator for the operatives in all the great wage 
questions where the question has been settled by arbitra- 
tion. 

From Mr. Fielden's testimony, drawn as it is from the 
secretaries of the great labor organizations and from manu- 
facturers, and which cannot be questioned, we find that 
during the last twenty years there has been a serious 
decline in wages in England, amounting to from 12 to 15 
per cent, and a large falling off in business. In this coun- 
try, during the same period, the Aldrich report shows 
that there has been an advance in industrial wages of 
about 14 per cent. Mr. Fielden attributes the decline 
in England to the demonetization of silver, which on his 
theory affected wages and prices all over the world. Yet 
our wages, assuming that Mr. Fielden is correct in his 
theory, despite this currency difficulty, which was pushing 
them downward all the time, nevertheless rose 14 per cent. 

Thus we see that if it is the abandonment of silver which 
has forced down wages and prices, free trade was helpless 
to resist the decline, while in the United States protection 
was able not only to resist the adverse force, but to keep 
wages on an ascending scale. During the debates of last 
summer many free traders who were eagerly supporting 
the gold standard claimed that it had not lowered prices, 
because wages in the United States had been rising since 
1873. They are, therefore, estopped from now denying the 
fact of the rise. On the other hand, the friends of silver 
met this argument, drawn from our increasing wages, by 
saying that they formed an exception to the general de- 
cline on account of the labor organizations and the pro- 



124 THE TARIFF. 

tective tariff, both infractions of the let-alone theory on 
which free trade rests. If, however, we assume that Mr. 
Fielden's theory as to the cause of the decline is incorrect, 
and that it had nothing to do with the state of the currency, 
then we find that during the last twenty years English 
wages have gone down 15 per cent under free trade, while 
American wages have risen 14 per cent under protection. 
It makes no difference whether we accept Mr. Fielden's 
view as to silver, or deny, with the gold monometallist, 
that silver had anything to do with the general decline of 
wages in England. So far as the question of free trade 
or protection is concerned, the result is the same and in 
favor of protection. If silver caused declining wages, the 
statistics show that protection was able to resist the de- 
cline. If silver had nothing to do with the decline in 
wages, then, according to statistics, wages have been rising 
for twenty years past under American protection and 
falling under English free trade. I will not bring forward 
any additional testimony in support of the evidence of Mr. 
Fielden. There is no need to do so. The general facts 
more than sustain all the details. The London dock strike 
of a few years ago, followed as it was last summer by the 
strike of 300,000 miners, against a reduction of wages, 
demonstrates the continued decline of wages in England. 
No general decline of wages took place in the United 
States until the protective tariff was threatened with de- 
struction. Most significant of all is the fact that the stream 
of immio^ration flows from England to the United States. 
English immigrants come here to better their condition, 
and the instinct which leads them to do so is conclusive 
proof that the people who live by wages know them to be 
higher in protected America than in free-trade England. 
Thus we see that in fifty years free trade has proved utterly 



THE TARIFF. 125 

unable to maintain wages in England, much less to in- 
crease them. At this point, also, free trade as a practical 
system has broken down. 

Turn from industry to agriculture. Has English agri- 
culture benefited by free trade, as Cobden and others of 
his school predicted? It is a matter of public notoriety 
that the record of agriculture in England of late years is 
little but a record of disaster. It is estimated that 2,500,- 
000 acres of land have been driven out of cultivation. 
Rents have fallen from 30 to 50 per cent, and the market 
value of farming land has decreased in like proportion. 
In 1862, England grew 17,000,000 quarters of wheat, and 
in 1892, 7,000,000 quarters. Within six months the land- 
owners and farmers of Essex have been obliged to reduce 
the wages of their laborers to 8s. a week. How would our 
farmers and farm laborers like to live on $104 a year? 
But of course, according to the free trader, the agricul- 
tural laborers go into some more profitable employment. 
Let us see how they go, and where. 

The " London Truth " says : — 

A vast number of agricultural laborers found it difficult to 
get work, and so became coal-miners. In 1886, there were 619,- 
106 miners ; in 1892, there were 963,000. In order that this 
large number should find work, the working days of the week 
were reduced, with a consequent reduction of wages. 

To this movement of labor from the field to the mines, 
the great coal strike of last summer was the terrible 
answer. This is what would happen here if our industrial 
wage-earners were forced out of their present position by 
increased foreign importations on to the lauds or into the 
mines. It is not a pleasant picture to contemplate, and 
yet a great party in this country is actually struggling to 



126 THE TARIFF. 

bring it about. But in England, while her newspapers 
are urging us to adopt free trade, and her manufacturers, 
like Mr. Fielden, are waiting breathlessly to rush into 
our markets, some Englishmen are once more recalling 
the words o£ one of England's great prime ministers, 
uttered to deaf ears in the hour of the free-trade triumph. 
On the third reading of the repeal bill in 1846, Mr. Disraeli 
said : — 

It may be vain now, in the midnight of their intoxication, to 
tell them there will be an awakening to bitterness. It may be 
idle now, in the springtide of their economic frenzy, to warn 
them that there will be an ebb of trouble. But the dark and 
inevitable hour will arrive ; then, when their spirit is softened by 
misfortune, they will recur to those principles which made Eng- 
land great, and in our belief can alone keep England great. 
They may then perchance remember, not with unkindness, those 
who, betrayed and deserted, were neither ashamed nor afraid to 
struggle for the good old cause — the cause with which are 
associated principles the most popular, sentiments the most utterly 
national — the cause of labor, the cause of the people, the cause 
of England. 

Nothing remains but the free-trade promise to increase 
trade. From official figures I will show the percentage 
of increase in English exports from decade to decade 
since 1830. I will also show the percentage of increase 
in American exports during the same period : — 



THE TARIFF. 



127 



Decade. 


Increase of exports 

over preceding 

decade. 




English. 


American. 


1820-1830 


Per cent. 


Per cent. 


1830-1840 


25.0 
38.1 
88.8 
59.3 
36.5 
5.5 


58 


1840-1850 


20 3 


1850-1860 


95.2 

8.7 

129 


1860-1870 


1870-1880 


1880-1890 


39.7 




Average increase 


42.2 


68.5 
68 4 


Average increase, excluding 1860-1870. . 









These tables, which exhibit accurately the volume of 
trade, require but little comment. It must be remembered 
in considering them that the principal argument of the 
free trader is that by his system we shall expand trade 
and increase the volume of exports, thereby widening the 
circulation of our products, and thus stimulate and enlarge 
production. A glance at these tables shows that the aver- 
age rate of increase in British exports during six decades 
was 42.2 per cent, while for the same decades (five of 
which were under a high and one under a low tariff, but 
none under absolute free trade) the average rate of in- 
crease in the exports of the United States was 58.5 per 
cent. In these six decades I have included the war decade, 
from 1860 to 1870, which was of course wholly abnormal 
and ought not to be included in getting the true average 
increase. Excluding the war decade, the average increase 
of exports from the United States by decades since 1830 
is 68.4 per cent against 42.2 per cent in free-trade England. 
In other words, on the most vital point made by the free 
trader we find that under protection the United States 



128 THE TARIFF. 

has beaten England over 25 per cent in the rate of increase 
in exports. What becomes of the free trader's promises, 
that by his system we are to get larger markets and wider 
circulation for our products, when for sixty years we have 
increased our exports under protection so much more 
rapidly than free-trade England? If we can increase our 
exports more rapidly under protection than England can 
hers under free trade, how absurd it is to ask us to adopt 
free trade in order to enlarge our market. It will also be 
observed from these tables that the decline in English ex- 
ports has been steady since the decade from 1850 to 1860, 
when all trade was so enormously stimulated by the gold 
discoveries of California and Australia, and that during 
the last decade all increase has practically ended. 

I will now give a series of tables showing how England 
raises her revenue. I will not pause to comment upon 
them. Any one who will take the trouble to examine them 
can see how much more the English methods of raising 
revenue burden the poorer classes of the population than 
our methods do under our existing system : — 

[Whittaker's Almanack, 1894.] 

Public net revenue of Great Britain, 1893, and the sources from which 

it is derived. 

Customs $98,575,000 

Excise 120,800,000 

Stamps (excluding fee, etc., stamps) 69,025,000 

Land tax 5,200,000 

House duty 7,050,000 

Property and income tax 67,350,000 

Post-office 62,000,000 

Telegraph service 12,400,000 

Crown lands (net) 2,150,000 

Stamps in lieu of fees 44,162,840 

Interest on advances 1,101,980 



THE TARIFF. 129 

Interest on Suez shares $994,145 

Miscellaneous 4,313,570 

Allowance from the Bank of England 854,850 

Local taxation 36,071,010 

The total revenue of Great Britain for 1892-'93 . 488,048,395 

The custom duties are collected as follows : — 

Beer, etc $66,955 

Chicory 305,445 

Cocoa, 50 cents per 100 pounds 534,455 

Coffee, 4 cents per pound 867,135 

Currants 501,340 

Figs, plums, and prunes 271,350 

Raisins 957,845 

Spirits — 

Rum 10,390,310 

Brandy 6,671,105 

Gin o 764,490 

Other spirits 2,629,350 

Tea, 8 cents per pound . 17,031,125 

Tobacco, 80 cents to $1.25 per pound 50,622,175 

Wine 6,351,240 

All other 15,840 

Total 97,980,160 

A trifling change of duty was made when the chancellor 
introduced his budget for the year. 

Another contributory item is that of woods, forests, 
and land revenues of the Crown; the produce for the 
year, including a balance of ill0,755 brought forward, 
was 12,577,980 ; of this $1,720,000 was paid into the ex- 
chequei-, same as in the years preceding. 

The miscellaneous contains the following items : — 

Small branches of the hereditary revenue $130,880 

Bank of England (profits of issue) 854,855 

Naval prize fund 1,000 

Contributions from Indian revenues 90,135 



130 " THE TARIFF. 

Expenses of administration of local loans $207,655 

Receipts by civil departments 4,064,310 

Receipts by revenue departments 152,235 

Post-office savings banks 255,590 

Trustee savings banks 25,325 

Savings on grants of Parliament, etc 16,090 

Isle of Man 50,000 

Greek loan 39,720 

Conscience money 11,540 

From Transvaal 75,470 

Bankruptcy act, 1883 153,090 

City of London parochial charities act, 1883 11,935 

Casual receipts 6,085 

Fees, etc., stamps 4,162,840 

Total miscellaneous revenue 10,308,755 

Stamps are bought at the Somerset House, and placed 
on all bills and deeds according to value. 

House duty : On inhabited houses, occupied as farm 
houses, coffee shops, warehouses, and shops of the annual 
value of not less than $100. From four cents to eighteen 
cents on each fifty cents of value, amounting to $7,050,000. 

The excise portion of inland revenue heads the list. 
The chief items of this are intoxicants. This item amounts 
to 1126,800,000, or more than one fourth of the entire 
revenue of the country. 

The chief items contributing to the excise portion of 
the inland revenue, net, are for 1893, as follows : — 

Spirits $76,420,335 

Beer 47,229,465 

Licenses 1,171,400 

Railways 1,551,625 

Total 126,372,823 



THE TAEIFF. 131 

STAMPS, 1893. 

Stamps are next in order. They produce the very re- 
spectable sum of 169,025,000, the largest portion of which 
comes from the deaths, probate, legacy, and succession 
duties. 

Death duties — 

Probate and account $23,980,295 

Legacy 17,210,455 

Succession 7,279,030 

Estate duty, personalty 6,458,800 

Estate duty, realty 814,510 

Total 54,743,090 

The above are some of the largest items under the head 
of stamps (excluding fee, etc., stamps). These amounts 
were actually received and form a part of the net annual 
revenue. 

PROPERTY AND INCOME TAX. 

All modern chancellors have found this elastic tax most 
useful. 

The following gives the amount obtained from the sev- 
eral classes: — 

A (lands, tenements, etc.) $20,591,230 

B (occupation of lands, etc.) 1,104,340 

C (annuities, dividends, etc.) 4,801,330 

D (trades, professions, etc.) 36,114,890 

E (public offices, etc.) 4,586,000 

Total 67,197,885 

STAMPS IN LIEU OF FEES. 

Stamps under this heading are affixed to all bills, bills 
of lading, bills of exchange, checks, certificates of birth 
and marriage, etc., amounting to 14,162,840. 



132 THE TARIFF. 

GROSS REVENUE OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE FOR 1893. 
Net amount S488,048,395 

COST TO COLLECT. 

Customs 4,252,970 

lulancl revenue 8,825,000 

Post office 32,565,000 

Telegraph 12,975,000 

Packet service 3,605,405 

Total gross revenue received by the British gov- 
ernment from all sources 550,271,775 

This is collected from the poor as well as the rich. The 
duty on tea is eight cents a pound, coffee four cents per 
pound ; and there is no discrimination in the tax on tea 
or coffee as to quality. The rich and poor pay the same 
tax on the commodities. 

The total number of paupers in England, Wales, Ire- 
land, and the Kingdom of Scotland is 979,440. (Twenty- 
eight persons in every one thousand are paupers.) Popu- 
lation, 38,000,000. 

One person in every twelve needs relief to keep him 
from starvation. In London two persons out of every 
nine die in the workhouse or other public institutions ; in 
Manchester one out of every five. 

The cost to maintain the paupers of Great Britain for 
the past year was $46,273,915. 

The " London Christian " says : — 

One out of every two laboring men over sixty years of age 
comes under the law. 

The number of paupers in the United States is 97,265 
(one and one half persons in every one thousand). Pop- 
ulation, 62,000,000. 



THE TARIFF. 133 

Mr. John Morley, secretary for Ireland, in addressing 
the Amalgamated Society of Engineers at Newcastle in 
May, 1889, declared : " It is an awful fact — it is really 
not short of awful — that in this country, with all its 
wealth, its vast resources, and all its power, 45 per cent — 
that is to say, nearly one half of the persons who reach 
the age of sixty — are, or have been, paupers." 

What, then, do we find in the experience of Great 
Britain or in the condition of her population under free 
trade to warrant our making the vast industrial change 
with which we are threatened 'i We not only do not get 
anything to show that the change must be obviously and 
surely beneficial, but, on the contrary, all the evidence 
points strongly the other way. We find that their natural 
conditions are wholly different from ours, that no other 
civilized nation has adopted the British system, and that 
even her own colonies have abandoned it. We find that 
England does not hesitate to apply protection where she 
thinks it profitable. She gives vast subsidies, which are 
protective bounties, to her shippiug. She has just imposed 
import duties in India, but she has excepted cotton goods 
and yarns, nearly half the imports, thus giving a protect- 
ive discrimination in those vast possessions in favor of 
the Lancashire mills, proving in this way that her eager- 
ness to have other nations adopt free trade is simply that 
she may have markets which are now closed to her. We 
have found also that wages have been declinins; in Eno-- 
land under free trade during a period of twenty years. 
By the tables of exports we learn that exports increase 
faster under American protection than under British 
free trade. We see from other statistics that she has 
twenty-eight paupers to every one thousand, against one 
and one half in the United States. We know that the 



134 THE TARIFF. 

stream of emigration flows from England to the United 
States ; we know, in one word, that wages are better here, 
the standard of living higher, and the opportunities of 
life larger than in England. All this we are asked to 
abandon in order to try the free-trade system, which the 
British colonies have thrown aside, and about the merit 
of which England herself is hesitating to-day. If we 
make such a change, Hamlet's reproach might well be 
made to us : " Could you on this fair mountain leave to 
feed, and batten on this moor ? " 

Such in outline have been the history and results of 
free trade in the only country which has adopted it. Let 
us see now what it promises and what rewards it offers 
when it asks for adoption in the United States. No one 
will deny that under protection, and especially during the 
last thirty years, this country has enjoyed a great prosper- 
ity, and that its progress and material development have 
been little short of marvelous. When we are asked to lay 
aside a system under which we have been so successful, 
the inducement ought to be very great and the reward 
very sure. In coming to a decision so momentous and a 
change so far reaching, we ought to understand well what 
we are to gain by it. Free trade, as its name implies, 
makes trade of the first importance as a condition of nat- 
ural wealth and prosperity. It starts, therefore, with a 
misconception. Dr. Johnson, who was not an economist, 
but who had a great deal of robust common sense, said 
once to Boswell : — 

Depend upon it, this rage o£ trade will destroy itself. You and 
I shall not see it, but the time will come when there will be an 
end of it. Trade is like gaming If a whole company are 
gamesters the play must cease, for there is nothing to be won. 
When all nations are traders, there is nothing to be gained by 



THE TARIFF. 135 

trade, and it will stop first where it is brought to the greatest 
perfection. Then the proprietors of land only will be great 
men. 

No one would think of quoting Dr. Johnson as an au- 
thority on political economy, and his vigorous statements 
generally ran, as in this instance, to extremes. Yet none 
the less his strong sense of the relation of things has here 
grasped the fundamental truth that production is far more 
essential than trade. I do not in the least underrate the 
importance of trade ; but as a source of wealth and na- 
tional well-being it is secondary to production, and if we 
give it tlie first place in our consideration we begin with 
a serious error, and one capable of leading us far astray. 
The true and lasting source of wealth is production, while 
trade, even though it enhances the value of the product, 
is at the same time a tax upon production, on account of 
the cost of transportation. A nation without trade may 
be permanently rich and prosperous, but a nation with- 
out production and dependent solely on trade holds riches 
and prosperity by a frail tenure. This proposition is sus- 
ceptible of historic proof. The Venetians were at one 
time the richest people in Europe. They " held the gor- 
geous East in fee," and all the trade between the east 
and west passed through the city of the lagoons. Their 
wealth came from the cost of transportation which was 
paid to them, and from the tolls and taxes which they 
imposed upon the vast quantities of merchandise which 
passed through their hands. They were sufficiently pow- 
erful to combat for years the power of the Turkish Em- 
pire, and they fought with Europe banded against them 
in the League of Cambray. They were not producers. 
They had no agriculture, and, except for the manufacture 
of glass, lace, and certain stuffs, they had no industries. 



136 THE TARIFF. 

The route to the East by the Cape of Good Hope was 
discovered, and the Eastern trade passed into new chan- 
nels. With the departure of her trade, Venice sank to 
rise no more. She had no industries, no production to 
fall back upon. She became a second-rate Italian city, 
with nothing- left of the days of her glory but the manu- 
facture of lace and glass, the pictures which her artists had 
painted, and the palaces and churches which her mer- 
chant princes had built. The Eastern trade passed to 
Portugal, and quickly passed away, leaving the country 
with only her native products for support. Holland built 
up her trade, threw off the yoke of Spain, and for a cen- 
tury was one of the first powers of Europe, and the rival 
of England in the narrow seas. Yet Holland, despite her 
splendid people, was not large enough in territory nor 
strong enough in numbers to hold out against larger coun- 
tries and more numerous races. She ceased to dominate 
in trade, and when trade failed she sank to what she is 
to-day, one of the lesser powers of Europe. She was 
saved from the fate of Venice, not by the trade that re- 
mained, but by the fact that, although trade had been 
her principal source of wealth, she was also a producer 
and a colonizer of productive countries, and it is her in- 
dustries and her agriculture — in one word, her produc- 
tion — which has maintained her even as she is at the 
present time. 

These examples show that trade alone cannot assure to 
a people lasting prosperity, and if we look at it carefully 
we can see that there is no reason why it should be other- 
wise. Take trade in its last expression, and it is but 
the exchange of existing values or their representatives. 
Trade is very brisk at Monte Carlo, and large sums of 
money are made and lost there by the exchange of what 



THE TARIFF. 137 

represents real values. Yet the prosperity of Monte 
Carlo is not desirable. Trade is most active in the Paris 
Bourse, the London Stock Exchange, and on Wall Street. 
In all those places that which represents real values passes 
rapidly from hand to hand, and vast fortunes are lost and 
won. In no place is barter, so beloved of the free trader, 
carried to such an ideal height; yet the stock exchanges 
of the world add nothing to the real wealth of the com- 
munity. They are conveniences, but they create nothing. 
They deal in the symbols of wealth, but the wealth itself 
is made elsewhere, — on the farm and in the factory, in 
the mine and the workshop. Trade is really valuable 
only as a means of giving wider circulation to products. 
In this capacity it is of very great importance, but in no 
other, and the cost of transportation is a tax which pro- 
duction pays for this wider circulation. It is of the ut- 
most importance that a nation should pay this tax to 
itself and not to othei's. We suffer from the fact that we 
pay the cost of transportation of our imports and exports 
largely to other nations, and we shall continue to do so 
until we give to our foreign commerce the same protec- 
tion which other nations give to theirs, and which we have 
extended to our domestic industries and to our coastwise 
trade. We have protected the shipbuilder but not the 
shipowner, and an incomplete system cannot do otherwise 
than fail. We have refused protection to our commerce, 
the precise point where England has bestowed it with 
lavish hand. Now we are asked to give up the system 
under which our industries and coastwise trade have floiar- 
ished, and replace it by that under which our foreign car- 
rying trade has been ruined. 

The wider circulation of products then is, as I have 
said, the only thing in trade which enhances their value, 



138 THE TARIFF. 

and free trade promises us this by saying that if we adopt 
it we shall obtain the markets of the world. This is 
highly desirable, but we ought to know first just what we 
are going to get, and, second, what price we are going to 
pay, for it is quite possible to pay too high a price for 
anything, even the markets of the world, and we can get 
nothing under present earthly conditions without paying 
for it. When a free trader is asked what our immediate 
advantage is to be from the adoption of his policy, he glibly 
replies, " The markets of the world," and feels, after the 
manner of his school, that the whole matter is settled by 
a well-sounding phrase. Unfortunately we cannot stop 
there. We must go farther and have something more 
satisfying than a glittering generality, the favorite hiding- 
place of delusions. The " markets of the world " sounds 
delightfully, but what markets? At this point the free 
trader gives out ; and yet it is the very essence of the 
whole question. 

Let us run over briefly these markets of the world, and 
see just what they are. To Europe we now sell cotton 
and wheat and a few great staples. England takes what 
she must and no more, and the same is true of the Conti- 
nent. No change of tariff policy would enlarge our Eu- 
ropean market for breadstuffs or food products. Our 
great and familiar exports, or staples, are in reality de- 
clining seriously, owing to the competition of India, Egypt, 
and the Slavonic countries in the markets of Europe, 
which in the past we have practically controlled. This 
situation cannot be affected by free trade or protection, 
because the markets from which we are being driven 
are not our own. Barter does not enter into it, for we 
do not take breadstuffs from any one. We are simply 
being pushed out of foreign markets for breadstuffs by 



THE TARIFF. 139 

the competition of a labor so cheap that we cannot 
meet it. 

Statistics show that we cannot even hold our foreign 
market for breaclstuffs, much less enlarge it ; and it is also 
true that, with the exception of pork and other meat prod- 
ucts, there is practically no market in Europe or in Eng- 
land, so far as we are concerned, for anything else. They 
are all industrial or manufacturing countries, with large 
surplus production, and all except Great Britain have 
protective tariffs. Australia is protected, and so is Can- 
ada. There remain, then, the countries of the East and 
of South America, valuable markets, I have no doubt, but 
of limited purchasing power, and, as Mr. Reed said in the 
House, " with three generations of Englishmen, French- 
men, and Germans camped in possession of every avenue 
of trade." The markets of the world, therefore, come 
down to this, that under free trade we are to have an op- 
portunity, according to the free trader a better opportu- 
nity than at present, of struggling with England, France, 
and Germany for entrance into the Eastern and South 
American markets ; that is, of competing for certain lim- 
ited foreign markets against nations whose labor costs and 
standards of living are lower than our own. This does not 
seem a very magnificent opportunity, even as I have 
stated it ; and yet I have made no reference to the price 
which free trade proposes to make us pay for this privi- 
lege, although the price must be considered before the 
case is complete. _^ 

Under Republican rule we entered upon a policy in- \ 
tended to give us a share of the South American market. 
We proposed by reciprocity to get the South American 
countries and West India Islands to admit us to their 
markets on better terms than other nations, by offering 



140 THE TARIFF. 

them in return the free admission to our markets of cer- 
tain of their products which we were bound to import in 
any event from some country, because we did not produce 
them ourselves. In other words, we paid them for ad- 
mission to their markets with a preference over our com- 
petitors by favorable admission to our own. The policy 
was sound in theory, and has begun to produce good re- 
sults. Statistics show also that the decrease in our ex- 
ports of breadstuffs is being replaced by an increase in 
the exports of manufactured articles of a higher value 
than the great staples, and that this is largely due to 
reciprocity. 

The free trader on seeing these figures is always prompt 
to exclaim that a manufacturer who can export ought not 
to have any protection. They forget that such manufac- 
turers have reached this exporting point because the home 
market was secure. If you throw down the barriers which 
protect them at home you force them to struggle for the 
home market as for the foreign market, weakening their 
hold on the former and thereby losing the latter. More 
important still than the general proposition is the fact, 
which by itself is conclusive, that this increase of the ex- 
port of manufactures is chiefly to countries with which 
we have lately formed reciprocity treaties, impossible 
without a protective tariff, for without protection you 
will have nothing to give for the advantages you ask and 
receive. 

As reciprocity of this sort cannot exist without protec- 
tion, the Democratic party proposes to destroy it, as they 
do not seem to care for any extension of trade where the 
foreign country is obliged to make concessions to us. Under 
their scheme nothing is to be exacted from the foreigners, 
but we are to give everything. The price which we are 



THE TARIFF. 141 

to pay is not a limited admission to our market, but our 
market itself. They promise us an opportunity to com- 
pete, not for the markets of the world, but for a limited 
number of foreign markets, with nations having lower labor 
costs than ours. In return they ask us to abandon reci- 
procity, which is increasing our exports of manufactured 
products, and to throw our own market open to those 
same nations as well as to all others. The price is certain 
and enormous, while the vague promise, even if fulfilled, 
is as nothing to it ; and when we add to all this the fact 
just shown, that our exports have increased faster than 
those of England, it seems incredible that any one can be 
found even to attempt to argue that we shall enlarge our 
market by free trade. We not only sacrifice our home 
market, but sacrifice it for a system which increases ex- 
ports less than protection. 

And what a vast sacrifice the home market would be ! 
Our own market is the best in the world, because we are 
the richest people, with the largest purchasing power. If 
the statistics of Mulhall are correct, our seventy million 
people equal in consumption seven hundred million, or 
half the population of the world outside our boundaries. 
This great home market is now our own. The free trader 
proposes to abandon it, and throw it open to other nations 
from whom he asks nothing in return, and merely prom- 
ises that we shall have a chance to compete on equal terras 
for the markets which we are already getting under reci- 
procity in the West Indies and in South America. As a busi- 
ness proposition no madder scheme was ever proposed, and 
no more insane policy was ever urged upon an intelligent 
people. We are gravely asked to give up the American 
market, the most valuable material possession on the face 
of the earth, and we are not even offered a definite price. 



142 THE TARIFF. 

We are promised nothing but the vague result of a doubt- 
ful theory, and, if English experience may be trusted, a 
consequent diminution of exports. This is literally all 
that free trade offers to the people of the United States in 
the direction of a wider circulation for our products. They 
have, however, on the domestic side another promise. 
They tell us that if we throw our market open to the 
world we shall be able to buy cheaper, or, in other words, 
that our purchasing power will be increased. This as- 
sumes that rates of wages will remain unchanged, for you 
cannot enlarge a purchasing power by cheapening the 
thing purchased if you diminish the original purchasing 
power from other causes in an equal or greater ratio. To 
put it a little more plainly, if a man earns two dollars a day, 
and by cheapening what he buys you enable him to get for a 
dollar what now costs him a dollar and a half, you have 
increased his purchasing power ; but if, while you cheapen 
the article purchased, you lower his wages from two dol- 
lars to one dollar a day, the net result is a diminution of 
his purchasing power, and consequent privation. It is 
too often forgotten that two things go to make up pur- 
chasing power. One is the amount earned ; the other is 
the cost of the thing purchased. The first is the more 
important, and is generally neglected by the free traders. 
Yet purchasing power really rests on the power to earn — 
that is, upon production. If we do not produce, we do 
not earn ; and if we do not earn, it is of very little conse- 
quence whether the things we desire to purchase are cheap 
or dear. 

The proposition of the free trader that by the removal 
of duties we shall be enabled to buy cheaper involves of 
necessity increased importations, and a corresponding de- 
crease in either the amount or the prices of the home 



THE TARIFF. 143 

product. If we increase importations, just so far do we 
replace American products with those of foreigners, and 
just so far we proportionately narrow the opportunities 
for American labor. Here, of course, the free trader is 
ready with an answer. " You forget," he says, " the 
great principle of barter. If we buy foreign goods, where 
we formerly bought American goods, we pay for them 
with other products, and so, of course, the sum of pro- 
duction remains the same." Having thus completed his 
phrase he stops, just as he does with ' the markets of the 
world." But we cannot stop there. We must look 
farther. What are the American products with which we 
shall pay for these increased importations from Europe ? 
Obviously not the great staples, for we now sell all that 
Europe can take. Obviously, again, not manufactured 
goods, for Europe has a large surplus production of those 
already. Nothing practically remains, then, but money ; 
that is, our coin reserves and the product of our mines, to 
pay for these increased importations. In other words, we 
should enter upon a process of stripping ourselves of our 
gold and silver, in order to pay for these increased impor- 
tations which have replaced American goods. But let us 
go still further into this matter. By replacing American 
products with foreign products we throw the labor nomi- 
nally employed in making those American products out 
of employment. That labor must go somewhere. The 
free trader says that it will find its way into those employ- 
ments where we have a natural superiority, and where it 
is most profitable. As usual, he stops short on a half 
truth, for this is not all. This labor, by going into fields 
already occupied, increases the supply of labor in those 
fields and reduces wages. The more you concentrate 
labor in a few fields of employment, and the more you 



144 THE TARIFF. 

narrow its opportunities and diminish the diversification 
of industry, the smaller will be the demand for labor and 
the greater will be the reduction of wages. But there is 
still another side to this. Instead of narrowing the op- 
portunities of labor, we can prevent increased importa- 
tions by making them unprofitable. Unfortunately the 
only way we can make them unprofitable is by making 
our own costs lower than those of the foreigners, and 
there is no way to lower costs except by lowering wages. 
Thus we come back at every turn of the free-trade policy 
to a reduction of wages, and every free trader who knows 
anything of his subject, and is not talking for political 
effect, will admit this to be true. 

Sometimes he forgets himself, and in a moment of 
frankness not only admits that free trade will reduce 
waffes, but defends the reduction. Such was the case 
with the Hon. John C. Black, of Illinois, on the 9th of 
January last, during the tariff debate in the House. I 
quote from the " Record " : — 

Mr. Caknon of Illinois. My colleague refers to a half mil- 
lion of immigrants coming to this country each year, the most 
of whom are attracted by the larger wages here. Do I under- 
stand my friend that the remedy which he would propose to 
prevent that immigration would be hy decreasing the wages of 
the American workingman by bringing him into competition, not 
with the half million who come to our borders annually from 
abroad, but with the labor of the two hundred millions on the 
other side, who would send their products here free, in competi- 
tion with our labor ? 

Mr. Black of Illinois. Well, the question is ponderous, 
but fair, and I will try to reply to it. If I was being chased by 
bees, I would throw the honey down. If I was being set upon 
by wolves, I would get the fresh meat out of their sight. 



THE TARIFF. 145 

Mr. Reed. Even if the children also did not get it ? 

Mr. Black of Illinois. If I was certain that the American 
workingman of to-day was being overwhelmed by a vast mass 
of men seeking these shores because they believed that wages 
were higher, — a belief which is false in the long run, — and if 
I believed that that delusion depended upon a system of mislead- 
ing laws, I should seek to repeal those laws, to let wages have 
their natural place all around the world, and let people move all 
around the world in their own way. I would not toll them over 
here by a system of laws, the effect of which is to drive Amer- 
ican workingmen from their places, and to delude into starva- 
tion those who are thus attracted here. 

Mr. Reed. Then the gentleman favors an equality of wages 
between this country and others from which we have immi- 
gration ? 

Mr. Black of Illinois. That is not a fair way to put the 
question. 

Mr. Reed. You can make it fair in answering. 

Mr. Black of Illinois. I make answer by the removal of 
the artificial means by which we create a fictitious value of the 
article of wages, and let wages have its natural level, as it does 
elsewhere. 

Here is a complete confession which no subsequent ex- 
planation could disguise, and the simile used to defend it 
is quite perfect. We have honey, and are to throw it 
down because the bees pursue us. We have meat, and 
are to get rid of wolves by throwing it away. Why not 
keep the honey and drive off the bees ? Why not keep 
the meat and shoot the wolves? Yet this typical free 
trader asks us to give up a good, thing because other 
people want it, and advises our lowering wages because 
other people come here in search of them. No more com- 
plete picture of what free trade means and to what it leads 
could possibly be devised. Sometimes the free trader 



146 THE TARIFF. 

will say more adroitly, but less truthfully , that the reduction 
of wages will be met by the cheapening of articles to be 
purchased, but statistics show that this is false. In the 
comparisons made by Colonel Wright between the Massa- 
chusetts industries and those of England, it was proved 
that after every allowance made for greater cheapness of 
commodities and of the necessaries of life, the Massachu- 
setts workingman had a net advantage of between 45 and 
50 per cent over his British competitor. Therefore, under 
free trade we must have an actual net reduction in our 
watres, whether we force our labor into other channels of 
employment or whether we compete with foreign indus- 
tries. This means a lowering of the standard of living, 
which will be little short of a revolution. We pay for 
everything in this world, and this reduction of wages 
and diminution of earning power is the heavy price we 
must pay for the greater cheapness promised by the free 
trader. 

There is in this connection another most important 
point to be considered. Whether under free trade goods 
would be cheaper and the purchasing power of a dollar 
increased, it is certain that the price of labor would be 
greatly reduced. Now the labor cost is the chief and, in- 
deed, nearly the whole cost in everything we have. All our 
railroads and factories have been built, our farms cleared, 
our mines developed, at a certain labor cost. Reduce sud- 
denly the value of labor by free trade, and the whole of 
our vast industrial and transportation plant will be reduced 
in value. It must come down to the level of the new and 
lower labor costs at which future competitors could be 
constructed. This would mean a revolution in the value 
of all the machinery of industry and transportation, and 
would involve a vast liquidation and gigantic losses, com- 



THE TARIFF. 147 

ing as this change would come witli such a sudden shock. 
The loss to business and capital of such a rapid change 
would be incalculable, and the further loss to labor which 
this destruction to capital would cause would be more in- 
calculable still. The wealth of a country is in production, 
and the strength of a country is in its producers. It is 
worse than idle to talk about consumers, as if they were a 
vast proportion and a distinct part of the population, who 
ought alone to be considered. The mere consumers con- 
stitute not only an insignificant but a wholly unimportant 
fraction of the community. Everybody is a consumer and 
at the same time a producer, or dependent upon produc- 
tion for his support. The first object of our policy, there- 
fore, should be to do what is best for the producer, because 
production means both wealth and wages, and consump- 
tion depends upon the cajjacity for production. If, in a 
search for other markets, we give up our own, we lose 
more than we gain, and, instead of widening, we narrow 
the cii'culation of our products, and thereby diminish their 
value and limit production. 

Our first object should be to hold our own market, be- 
cause it is the largest and best ; and that being done and 
our own market securely guarded, our next object should 
be to increase our outside markets by any possible device. 
By means of invention and protection we have been 
enabled thus far to maintain high rates of wages in the 
United States, while lowering the price of the necessaries 
and comforts of life and raising the standard of living. 
If we abandon protection, we shall probably in many 
directions increase prices by withdrawing American com- 
petition from the competition of the world, and thereby 
raising the world's price. In any event, we shall lower 
wages. Protection does not make high wages, but it helps 



148 THE TARIFF. 

to prevent their reduction. "We have high wages in the 
United States, and our labor costs are consequently high. 
So far as natural resources go, we are more richly endowed 
by nature than any country in the world. It is only when 
we take from the earth its manifold gifts and touch them 
with the hands of labor that they become higher priced 
than elsewhere. The entire difference between our prices 
and those of Europe, when such difference exists, really 
lies in the labor costs. From the man who digs the clay, 
quarries the stone, or mines the iron, from which the fac- 
tory is built, to the operative who guides the most com- 
plicated machinery in the completed buildings, the labor 
cost is greater than in Europe, and the labor cost practi- 
cally constitutes the whole cost, so far as any question of 
competition is concerned. With a duty equal to the dif- 
ference in labor costs, our rates of wages can be maintained 
against outside competition. With the removal of such 
duties we must bring our labor costs down to theirs, or we 
must cease to manufacture and compete. To maintain 
these rates of wages is the whole purpose of protection, 
after we have got beyond the stage of establishing our 
industrial independence. 

To maintain high rates of wages and to give, if possi- 
ble, the fullest scope for their increase, I believe to be 
essential, because I believe good wages absolutely vital to 
the stability of our institutions and of our society. Protec- 
tion and free trade present a social far more than an eco- 
nomic question, for on high wages and high standards of 
living depends the stability of society, and especially in a 
republic where every man has a vote, and where no priv- 
ileged classes exist. Pi'otection in its widest aspect is 
something far more than a mere question of schedules or 
of national bookkeeping. It is an effort to defend by 



THE TARIFF. 149 

legislation our standards of living, just as the exclusion of 
the Chinese and of contract labor was. Protection is one 
feature of a great policy of self-preservation, which I be- 
lieve to be essential to the future of this republic. To 
abandon it is to enter on changes which will go to the 
very bottom of our social and political fabric. Look at 
this country since the threat of free trade has hung closely 
over it. Look at the miseries and losses and wage reduc- 
tions of the past year. If this is the result of the menace, 
what will the reality be ? The reductions of wages thus far 
made are trifling to what will come if this bill becomes 
law, and men seek to adjust themselves to the new condi- 
tions. Such a lowering of wages is not to be contemplated 
without the deepest alarm. The country is agitated and 
frightened as at no previous time. "There is darkness 
before and danger's voice behind." While we debate rates 
of duties, the threat of this bill is really breaking down an 
important part of a broad general policy of society and 
government on which we must rely unless we are prepared 
to meet the shock of changes, which it would be difficult 
to portray. I have no fear of the ultimate result. I be- 
lieve that the mighty forces which have brought the great 
races of man to their present position will not cease to 
operate. I feel sure that in the end we shall not cast aside 
the policies which are to protect us from the lowering and 
deadly competition of races with lower standards of living 
than our own. 

But however confident I may feel of the ultimate result, 
I do not wish to see my country go through the wretch- 
edness which even a temporary abandonment of these 
policies will cause. It is too great a risk to take, too high 
a price to pay. Any great industrial change, no matter 
how fair its promises, is a grave peril, and sure to entail 



150 THE TARIFF. 

grievous losses. Let me quote on this point one of the 
first of American political economists, General Francis A. 
Walker, who is not a protectionist. In a recent pamphlet 
on the subject of bimetallism, General Walker says : — 

These are the economists who say that what one loses another 
will gain. They are the same economists who used to assert that 
it would not matter if wages were at any time unduly depressed 
by combinations of employers, inasmuch as the excess of profits 
resulting would infallibly become capital, and as such constitute 
an additional demand for labor ; and so the wrong would tend 
to right itself. 

It has been the teaching of the economists of this sort which 
has so deeply discredited political economy with the laboring 
men on the one hand, and with practical business men on the 
other. The political economy of to-day recognizes the indus- 
trial structure as of the highest importance ; it teaches that 
industrial injuries remain, deepen, and tend to become perma- 
nent ; that sudden and violent changes are always to the preju- 
dice of the least fortunate members of society, — the poor, the 
ignorant, and the inert, those who have little capital, those who 
are distant from the market, those who are at a disadvantage 
in the economic struggle, from whatever cause. It is with in- 
dustrial society as it is with the human body. A certain portion 
of its substance is always in a fluid state, circulating unceasingly 
through the system, nourishing as it goes every part, every or- 
gan, every limb ; but by far the largest part has taken on a per- 
manent and unchangeable form, which cannot be crushed or 
mutilated or punctured without serious, perhaps fatal, injury. 

The political economy which treats industrial society as in a 
state of flux, which regards undeserved losses as amply compen- 
sated by unearned gains of an equal amount, which declares 
that, whatever happens in the field of industry, readjustment 
will promptly and surely take place, is exactly on a par with 
the physiology which should assume that a tall, lank man could, 



THE TARIFF. 151 

by the pressure of a certain number of " atmospheres," be made 
over at will into a short, stout man of the same weight, without 
loss of life or energy. 

The Democratic party has undertaken to make a revo- 
lutionary change in our industrial system, and the effects 
pointed out by General Walker have followed hard upon 
the threat. Yet the Democrats have lost heart as they 
have proceeded. One concession has followed another, 
until it would be a mockery to call this bill the expression 
of any economic doctrine, still more so to represent it as 
carrying out the principles declared by the Democratic 
party at Chicago. A broad and equal policy of free trade 
might be defended on theoretical grounds. It would at 
least have meaning, and could be understood. But a bill 
which wrecks a protective policy, only to put in its place a 
set of schedules which slaughter some industries and give 
premiums to others, is wholly indefensible. To replace a 
protective system with free trade is at least intelligible, 
but to destroy by threats of industrial revolution such a 
prosperity as we enjoyed under the protective system in 
1892 is as wanton as it is ignorant and cruel. If we are 
to have protection, let us have it for every interest, equal 
and fair to aU. If we are to have free trade, let us have 
the real thing, and have it for everybody, for that at least 
will be fair. But an ignorant mixture of these two sys- 
tems is in practice as impossible as it is unjust. 

I reserve what I have to say on the details of this 
measure for some future occasion. I do not propose to 
spend any time now in discussing the bill before us. As I 
have said, it embodies no policy and has no system. It is 
not protection ; it is not free trade. It is a mere collection 
of preferences and revenges. It is filled with injustice and 



152 THE TARIFF. 

inequality. It shuts the door upon any hope of union 
with Canada, for it gives to Canada every advantage of 
union without exacting any return, and frees her from 
all inducements to become, as she ought to become, part 
of the United States. It is a reactionary movement to an 
outworn system, resting on a general doctrine which finds 
no defense in practice anywhere. It has no element of sta- 
bility, and its enactment promises nothing but continued 
chano-e and agitation. The stock jobbing and sjieculation 
of Wall Street have been with it from its cradle, and soon, 
I trust, may weep beside its grave. The great trusts are 
guarded by its provisions ; but there is no line to show that 
the farmer, the workingman, or the manufacturer have 
been heard or regarded in its schedules. 

I turn from this printed deformity to the broad prin- 
ciple which the party to whom we owe this bill pretended 
to advocate, and which I have already discussed. That is 
the principle of let-alone in the government, the refusal 
to use the power of the state to benefit the community. 
Protection rests on the broad doctrine that the power of 
the community can be wisely used in certain cases for the 
benefit of the whole body politic. There is no magic in it. 
We leave to the free trader the privilege of claiming that 
he has a panacea for all human ills in a patent tariff 
policy. We uphold a system of tariff protection because we 
believe it is one important method of defending the stand- 
ards of livino- in the United States from a fatal and de- 
grading competition. We believe in maintaining, defend- 
ing, and uplifting the standards of living of the American 
people, because upon those standards rest our civilization 
and the onward march of our race. Men have struggled 
up from the darkness which shrouds their beginnings by 
slow and strenuous endeavor. They have fought their way 



THE TARIFF. 153 

to the light through many defeats and with much sore 
labor. They have not done it by any doctrine of laissez 
faire or "let-alone," but by united and unresting effort. 
The same force which has created great nations has cre- 
ated civilization, and great nations are the denial of the 
let-alone theory. " Laissez faire, Supply-and-Demand, 
one begins to be weary of all that. Leave all to egoism, 
to ravenous greed of money, of pleasure, of applause. It 
is the Gospel of Despair." 



OUR DUTY TOWARD HAWAII. 

SPEECH IN THE SENATE, JANUARY 19 AND 22, 1895. 



OUR DUTY TOWARD HAWAII. 



A motion having been made in the Senate to displace a pending 
measure, and consider a resolution by Mr. Frye that the Executive 
Government send a warship to Honolulu — 

Mr. Lodge said : — 

Mr. President : I wish to say something in regard to 
my reasons for thinking that the pending motion should 
prevail, in order that we may take up the subject of 
Hawaii, which appears to me a little more immediate and 
pressing this morning than even the immediate infliction 
of the income tax upon an innocent people. 

The President jrro tempore. The Senator from Mas- 
sachusetts will allow the Chair to state that the confer- 
ence report has already been concurred in. The pending 
question was on the motion of the Senator from Missouri 
[Mr. Cockrell], that the Senate recede from two of its 
amendments, pending which the Senator from New 
Hampshire [Mr. Chandler] moved to postpone the further 
consideration of the conference report until Monday next 
at two o'clock. 

Mr. Lodge. So I understand, Mr. President. I 
meant merely that the points relate to the conference 
report. 

Mr. President, we have heard this morning: throuch 
the press dispatches that there has been an uprising 
in Hawaii, accompanied with considerable fighting and 



158 OUR DUTY TOWARD HAWAII. 

bloodshed and the loss of some valuable lives. It will 
be remembered that when, in response to my inquiry, the 
report of Admiral Walker was laid before the Senate, the 
admiral, in his letters addressed to the Department, stated 
that the objection to withdrawing the American war-ships 
was that it would leave the impression on the native mind 
that this country sympathized with a royalist uprising. 

In some remarks which I had the honor to submit to 
the Senate, I called attention to that point in urging the 
adoption of a resolution of inquiry in regard to the fact 
that we had no war-ships there. I pointed out that it 
made no difference whether the natives were right or 
wrong in their opinion that such withdrawal implied the 
sympathy of the United States for the ex-Queen. Such, 
in any event, was the effect which the withdrawal of our 
man-of-war produced upon their minds. It was a direct 
encouragement to an uprising of this character. Admi- 
ral Walker also stated, it will be remembered, that he had 
no doubt of the capacity of the existing government to 
maintain itself. That capacity has been shown by the 
events about which we read in this morning's newspapers. 

Admiral Walker went further. He also called atten- 
tion to his belief that the withdrawal of our ship while 
the British ships still remained, would be considered an 
evidence of the sympathy of Great Britain for the royalist 
party, and he believed, from what he had been able to 
learn, that British sympathy ran in that direction. He 
also called attention to the Japanese interests there, and 
the threatening character of the Japanese population. 
These views and opinions were made light of and disre- 
garded at the time by the administration, but they are 
more than justified by recent events. 

After the publication of the Walker Report a message 



OUR DUTY TOWARD HAWAU. 159 

was sent to Congress by the President of the United States, 
in which he urged us so to modify our treaty with Hawaii 
that Great Britain may obtain the use of an island in order 
to land a British cable. In that message the President 
took occasion to say, with what I think was a covert re- 
flection upon Admiral Walker, his own witness, but one 
who had proved unsatisfactory in that capacity to the 
President's policy, that — 

Some of the dispatches from our minister, which are sub- 
mitted, not only refer to the project for leasing an uninhabited 
island belonging to Hawaii, but contain interesting information 
concerning recent occurrences in that country, and its political 
and social condition. This information is valuable, because it is 
based upon the observation and knowledge necessarily within 
the scope of the diplomatic duties which are intrusted solely to 
the charge of this intelligent diplomatic officer representing the 
United States Government at Hawaii. 

The " intelligent diplomatic officer representing the 
United States Government at Hawaii " was prompt to dis- 
avow, in the dispatch referred to, what Admiral Walker 
had said, and to intimate that the admiral's belief that 
there was any undue British influence in those islands 
was wholly unfounded. He also dwelt upon the peaceful 
condition of the islands, and generally contradicted the 
views which Admiral Walker had submitted to the Sec- 
retary of the Navy. I read from the general press dis- 
patches of this morning the following statement as a 
commentary on the views of the " intelligent diplomatic 
officer " : — 

The arrangements were for a general uprising in several 
parts of Honolulu and the seizure of the palace. The royalists 
had been assured by the British consul-general that if they held 



160 OUR DUTY TOWARD HAWAII. 

the palace three hours he would recognize them as the govern- 
ment. 

The same dispatches give us to understand that the 
arms and ammunition of the insurgents came from Van- 
couver, and that Canadians were among the leaders of 

the rioters. 

There is never any particular pleasure in saying, " I told 
you so," when the event is such an unfortunate one as 
this, and involves so much rioting and bloodshed as does 
the recent event at Hawaii ; but 1 cannot refrain from 
callino- attention to the fact that Admiral Walker's 
opinion and the opinions which I expressed, based on his 
report, have been absolutely justified. The withdrawal of 
our ships, it is clear, left the impression on the native 
mind that this country, in an underhand manner, if not 
openly, was endeavoring to give countenance to the 
royalists, or at least was ready to leave their path clear. 

Mr. Platt. That is what the royalist commissioners 
came here to find out. 

Mr. Lodge. That, in my judgment, is precisely what 
the royal commissioners were seeking when they were 
here last summer. The events that we read about this 
morning have also shown, if the press dispatches can be 
relied upon at all, that the British officials there stood 
ready to take immediate advantage of the situation. I do 
not mean to imply that Great Britain is preparing to 
seize the Sandwich Islands and run up the British flag. 
Its treaty with France would prevent that ; the attitude of 
this country would prevent it ; but I do think it is perfectly 
clear that Great Britain is seeking, with the wise aggres- 
siveness which characterizes her foreign policy, to estab- 
lish British commercial supremacy in those islands. For 
that purpose Great Britain wishes to have an island upon 



OUR DUTY TOWARD HAWAII. 161 

which to land a cable ; for that purpose it wishes to have 
the royalist government reestablished, because it is a 
government favorable to British interests and unfavorable 
to ours. Every prediction that Admiral Walker's dis- 
patches made, both as to the natives and as to British in- 
fluence, is fully justified by the news we received this 
morning. 

The proposition to put an English cable into those 
islands, and to open in that manner a pathway for British 
advance into islands which have always been identified 
with us, and where we have a considerable commerce and 
great interests, are all the outgrowth of the same mistaken 
policy in regard to the Sandwich Islands, while the rioting 
and bloodshed which have occurred there, deplorable as 
they are, although the result shows the strength of the ex- 
isting government, are due to the same policy which took 
away our war-ships from Honolulu. That policy is not 
the policy of the American people. The policy of our 
State Department stands right athwart the wishes of the 
American people in regard to what we should do about 
Hawaii. 

The desire of the American people, without distinction 
of party, is that we should at least control in those islands ; 
that our institutions should be predominant ; that the men 
of American blood who are administering the government 
should be sustained, and also, I believe, that the islands 
should become a part of the American Kepublic. The 
first effort of this administration was to maintain the 
royalist government. Even a Democratic Congress could 
not sustain that policy. The attempt failed, as the Presi- 
dent stated in his letter to the royal commissioners last 
summer. The next step of the administration was to 
withdraw the war-ships, when it was well known that there 



162 OUR DUTY TOWARD HAWAII. 

were royalist conspiracies there ; when it was well known 
that there was British sympathy there, and that the with- 
drawal of the war-ships would leave the islands exposed to 
just such an attempt as has been made. 

It seems to me, in view of the news we have received, 
that the Senate should delay no longer in expressing its 
honest conviction on the subject. Two resolutions have 
been offered here this morning, one by the Senator from 
Maine [Mr. Frye], and one by the Senator from South 
Dakota [Mr. Kyle] , both looking in the same direction — 
an expression of sympathy with the government and of 
approval of the course of the Hawaiian Government, — 
also urging that we should have proper representation 
there by the presence of a ship of war. 

Both resolutions have been laid over by objections from 
distinguished Senators of the Democratic party ; and when 
I attempted to bring up the resolution which is lying upon 
the table, subject to the call of the Senator from Rhode 
Island [Mr. Aldrich], we were met with this privileged 
conference report. I do not doubt the importance of the 
urgent deficiency appropriation bill. We all realize the 
popular liking for the tax, for the execution of which that 
bill carries an appropriation. But I think this tax can 
afford to wait until the American Senate has expressed 
its views on the events which we read about this morning 
in the newspapers, until we have said to the Hawaiian 
Government that we sympathize with them, that we con- 
gratulate thera on the strength and success they have 
shown, and that the American people at least, through 
their representatives in Congress, are not in favor of the 
un-American policy which has been pursued in those 
islands, first openly by the attempt to restore the govern- 
ment to the Queen, and then by the withdrawal of all 



OUR DUTY TOWARD HAWAII. 163 

American ships, indicating to the people of those islands, 
as they supposed, that we had lost all interest in them, 
that we took away our ships in order to leave an open 
path for a royalist uprising and for the riot and bloodshed 
and the loss of valuable life, of which every one must read 
this morning with pain. 



Saturday^ January 22, 1895. 

Mr. Lodge. Mr. President, the Senator from Dela- 
ware [Mr. Gray] was kind enough in his remarks yester- 
day to give a good deal of attention to the observations 
which I made in the Senate on Saturday last, and of course 
I cannot but feel gratified that he should have done so. 
It shows that what I said was not wholly ineffective. My 
speech was open, like every public utterance, to criticism 
and debate; but I think when the Senator from Delaware 
undertakes to explain my motives, he falls into some confu- 
sion. 

My motive in what I said was not, as he charged yester- 
day, to condemn the administration. The administration 
stands condemned now on this Hawaiian matter by the 
general opinion of the American people, and there is no 
need to add to that condemnation. I think the load is 
sufficiently heavy already. Still less do I desire to make 
any political capital out of this matter. There is no occa- 
sion for that ; and the attitude of Democratic Senators in 
this debate is adding largely to the political capital al- 
ready accumulated against their party, without any need 
of effort in that direction on my part. My only motive 
in moving these resolutions and urging action is that I 
feel very strongly that a great mistake has been made in 
our dealings with the Sandwich Islands, and that matters 



164 OUR DUTY TOWARD HAWAII. 

there have been and are now in such a condition that 
the United States ought to take a positive position in the 
relations which it occupies toward them. I think the 
time has come to take some affirmative action. The pres- 
ent state of affairs seems to me in the highest degree 
discreditable to the Government of the United States. 

The Senator from Delaware also criticised me for what 
I had said in regard to British influence, and he used the 
not very original phrase, that I was " twisting the lion's 
tail." I do not propose, Mr. President, to be deterred 
by that old cry from saying what seems to me to be true 
about British influence, if it is necessary to consider that 
subject at all. The views and the opinions, the desires or 
the hopes, of Great Britain, like those of every other 
foreign country, are a matter of profound indifference to 
me, except when they come in conflict with the interests 
of the United States. But when they do come in conflict 
with the interests of the United States, I propose, so far 
as in me lies, to uphold the American interests, as I see 
them, against the British interests, or those of any other 
foreign power. If that is " twisting the lion's tail," it 
may be called so by any one, and it is of no consequence 
to me whether the Senator uses the phrase or not. Phrases 
and catchwords are not arguments. 

The Senator from Delaware undertook to state yester- 
day and to-day what the views and wishes of England 
were on this subject. Let me say frankly that I have no 
special means of knowing what the views or purposes of 
Great Britain may be in regard to the Sandwich Islands. 
I have no doubt, however, that the State Department is 
fully informed as to British views and what Great Britain 
wants. It certainly appears to be. My opinions are based 
solely on facts of general public notoriety and the course 



OUR DUTY TOWARD HAWAII. 165 

of events. From these facts and events my conclusions are 
drawn. I think, in the first place, it is very obvious that 
British sympathy has always been and is now strongly with 
the royalist government, which has been righteously de- 
stroyed ; that England would like its restoration, and is 
endeavoring to establish her commercial supremacy in 
those islands; and that her influence and efforts are hos- 
tile to the interests of the United States. I do not think 
it is necessary to imply that Great Britain proposes to 
seize the Sandwich Islands. There is a treaty with France 
which I suppose would prevent that. I do not think she 
would wish to take such an extreme measure under ex- 
isting conditions. But I desire to call the attention of 
the Senate to what Great Britain has been doing in the 
Pacific Ocean during the last six years, which I think 
indicates that she is not averse to taking islands in that 
region. 

In 1888 Great Britain took the Gilbert group of thir- 
teen islands, 1500 miles from Hawaii ; the EUice group of 
five islands, 1800 miles from Hawaii; the Enderbury 
group of five islands, 1600 miles from Hawaii ; the Union 
group of three islands, 1800 miles from Hawaii ; and like- 
wise Kingman, Fanning, Washington, Palmyra, Christ- 
mas, and Jarvis islands. She also took, still in the same 
year, Maiden, Starbuck, Dudosa, Penrhyn, Vostok, Flint, 
and Caroline islands. Those islands were all taken in 
1888, some of them within 1200 miles and some of them 
within 1800 miles of Hawaii. In 1889 she took Ruie 
Island, 2400 miles from Hawaii ; Suwaroff Island, 1900 
miles from Hawaii ; and the Coral Islands, 900 miles from 
Hawaii. In 1891 she took Johnston Island, 600 miles from 
Hawaii ; in 1892, Gardner Island, 1600 miles from Ha- 
waii ; and in the same year Danger Island, 1800 miles 



166 OUR DUTY TOWARD HAWAII. 

from Hawaii. The islands of Palmyra and Johnston 
had been in possession of the Hawaiian Government 
since 1854, and are still claimed as a part of Hawaiian 

territory. 

This record, including the seizure of two islands claimed 
by Hawaii, a very weak power, seems to indicate that 
Eno-land has been taking every Pacific island she could 
reach, and that she might be persuaded to take the Sand- 
wich Islands if they came in her way. Great Britain, more- 
over, always coming nearer to Hawaii, attempted quite 
recently to add Necker Island to this long list of acquisi- 
tions. Necker Island is 460 miles, I believe, from Ha- 
waii; and Great Britain was prevented from seizing it 
only by the quickness of the Hawaiian Government in 
establishing its authority over it. Great Britain is even 
now trying to procure it by obtaining a modification of 
our treaty, which will permit her to take Hawaiian terri- 
tory. 

Mr. Gray. If the Senator will allow me, does he not 
recognize the fact that, so far as Necker Island is concerned, 
the request to the Government of the United States comes 
from the Hawaiian Government that we shall consent to 
the lease of Necker Island for the purpose of landing a 
cable there ? 

Mr. Lodge. They do not ask it. The President says 
they do, which is very different. They say they would like 
to submit to us the question of the desirability of modify- 
ing the treaty. 

Mr. Gray. Mr. Willis says they did. 
Mr. Lodge. I quote Mr. Hatch's dispatch, which is in 
the papers I have here. 

Mr. Gray. Mr. Willis says so. 

Mr. Lodge. Mr. Hatch is the minister of foreign 



OUR DUTY TOWARD HAWAII. 167 

affairs of Hawaii. He speaks with authority superior even 
to Mr. Willis, and I suppose made the official statement 
of the Hawaiian Government. 

It is perfectly obvious, Mr. President, that England, in 
pursuance of a well-settled policy, which I think is per- 
fectly correct, for I have no sympathy with either the 
" Little England " party or its wretched equivalent in 
our politics, is taking possession of every island upon 
which she can conveniently lay her hands. It is a part of 
the conquering and aggressive policy of England. I am 
the last to find fault with her. I believe she is wise in do- 
ing so. My criticism is that we do not exhibit the same 
spirit, the true spirit of our race, in protecting American 
interests and advancing them everywhere and at all times. 
I do not mean that we should enter on a widely extended 
system of colonization. That is not our line. But I do 
mean that we should take all outlying territory necessary 
to our own defense, to the protection of the Isthmian 
Canal, to the upbuilding of our trade and commerce, and 
to the maintenance of our military safety everywhere. I 
would take and hold the outworks, as we now hold the 
citadel, of American power. 

Such, then, have been the movements of England as to 
the taking of islands. But she has not stopped there. 
Within two years she has subsidized a steam line from 
Vancouver to Honolulu and Australia, and is trying now 
to get a cable established there, as every one knows. I 
have here extracts from the conference held at Ottawa of 
delegates from New Zealand and the Australian colonies, 
Canada and Great Britain, showing that their purpose 
is to get a cable passing entirely by the British Islands 
and " free from foreign control." 

So much, Mr. President, for the general policy of Great 



168 OUR DUTY TOWARD HAWAII. 

Britain in those waters. Now, as to her attitude as indicat- 
ing that she has sympathy with the royalist government 
in the isLand of Hawaii. It is perfectly well known that 
Major Wodehouse, who was for many years her minister, 
was very strongly in favor of the royalist government. 
Her diplomatic representatives and her naval officers have 
been opposed openly to the republic, and favorable to the 
restoration of the Queen. It is also a matter of public 
notoriety that the Princess Kaiulani, who, upon the re- 
storation of the monarchy, would be the heir to the throne, 
is the daughter of an Englishman, has lived for years and 
been educated in England, and is under the guardianship 
and special championship of Theophilus Davies, who 
came with her to this country and was with her here in 
Washington, and who seems to be very much concerned 
in the present revolution. The English bishop, the head 
of the English established church in Honolulu, still con- 
tinues to have public prayers for the deposed Queen of 
the Islands, and in a religious monthly which he issues 
denounces the republic, characterizes President Dole as 
a usurper, and urges the restoration of the monarchy. 
When the Philadelphia was removed from Honolulu, the 
British man-of-war Hyacinth, to which reference was made 
yesterday, was retained there until December. I was not 
able until to-day to find out just how late the ship was 
retained, but I have now learned that it was until Decem- 
ber. I have also made inquiries in regard to our practice 
of keeping ships there, to which the Senator from Dela- 
ware has referred to-day. It has not been the rule for a 
British man-of-war to be kept at Honolulu ; but for the 
past thirty years there have been but three brief inter- 
vals, I find, during which there has been no American 
man-of-war in Hawaiian waters. Since 1886 there has been 



OUR DUTY TOWARD HAWAII. 169 

hardly a day when there has not been from one to three 
American men-of-war in Hawaiian waters, until the with- 
drawal of the Philadelphia in September last. The ship 
that brought the arms to the Hawaiian revolutionists was 
bought by an Englishman, and the arms were shipped 
from an English port, from Canada ; they were transshipped 
and landed by an Englishman, and the leaders of the in- 
surrectionary parties were very largely Canadians. When 
the Alameda left Honolulu there were fifteen Englishmen 
under arrest for alleged complicity in the insurrection, 
and the British diplomatic representative had made de- 
mand upon the republic to be assured that capital punish- 
ment should not be inflicted upon any of the leaders of 
the revolution, a somewhat unusual proceeding. The arms 
then came from Vancouver. The leaders of the party 
were, many of them. Englishmen ; and we were told in the 
press dispatches — how correctly I do not know — that 
the insurrectionists had received assurances from the 
British consul-general that they would be recognized if 
they could hold the palace for three hours. 

Those are the facts, open and patent to all the world. 
To me they seem entirely to establish the case that Brit- 
ish sympathy is with the royalist government ; because 
England can more readily control it, because it is a gov- 
ernment in her interest and not in ours, and because they 
would like to establish British commercial supremacy in 
those islands. I have not a word to say against their 
policy. They are acting in their own interest, and their 
whole course in the Pacific shows that, for commercial and 
military reasons, they are grasping every island they can 
get. It is asking a good deal of human credulity to be- 
lieve that they are anxious to see us take the Sandwich 
Islands, or that they would not like to control them them- 



170 OUR DUTY TOWARD HAWAII. 

selves. I am hostile to their interests and purposes be- 
cause I believe they conflict with our own. 

Then there is the question of the Japanese, in regard 
to which the Senator from Delaware seemed disposed to 
sneer when he asked if we were afraid of the Japanese. 
Not at all ; we are afraid of no one. But any one who is 
familiar with the condition of affairs in Hawaii knows 
that there are over twenty thousand Japanese in those is- 
lands, that they are an element in the population disposed 
to be turbulent and to make trouble, and that they are re- 
garded as very dangerous by all the people of the white 
race, English and Americans alike. They were left there 
in this threatening condition with no man-of-war of the 
United States present, and with a man-of-war belonging 
to Japan. I have no idea that Japan desires to get into 
trouble with the United States, or to attack American 
property or American citizens. So long as there is a man- 
of-war of the United States in the harbor, there is no 
danger of anything of that sort happening. Withdraw 
that man-of-war, and it is very easy to suppose an upris- 
ing of the Japanese ; and if there should be an ujirising 
and massacre, it would be very little comfort to be told 
afterwards that there was no good reason to expect it and 
that we were not afraid of Japan. It is to prevent just 
such troubles as this that I desire to see the United States 
properly represented in that harbor. 

Mr. President, what has been the course of events in 
regard to our relations with those islands ? When the pres- 
ent administration came into power, there was a treaty 
of annexation pending in the Senate. The President 
withdrew that treaty. Then an attempt was made to 
restore the Queen. For that we have the authority of 
the President. He stated it himself. He said, " My 



OUR DUTY TOWARD HAWAII. 171 

plans have failed," referring in that letter to the plans to 
restore the Queen — the old government. That attempt 
having broken down, the matter was taken up in Congress, 
and a resolution passed here warning other nations of our 
interests in the island. After considerable delay, which 
excited a good deal of criticism, the present government 
was finally recognized by the administration. They 
placed a ship at Honolulu. This administration then 
sent Admiral Walker there them'selves, put him in com- 
mand, and directed him to report upon the situation. Up 
to the 20th of July they meant to keep a ship there, for 
in the dispatch of the Secretary of the Navy of that date 
he says that the Charleston was to go to Honolulu. After 
that date nothing more was said about it. In the mean- 
time the persons who are called royal commissioners, 
and so referred to by the President, came to Washington. 
They were not royal commissioners ; they were nothing 
but citizens of the Hawaiian Republic in the eye of the 
law; and the Queen whom they purported to represent 
was Mrs. Dominis, also a citizen of Hawaii. They had 
absolutely no authority ; they came here without a ves- 
tige of official rank of any kind, and were conspirators 
against the existing government which we had recognized. 
It is a well-settled practice in international law that the 
only road for such persons to the President or Secretary 
of State is through the official representatives of the 
recognized Hawaiian Government. 

That government had a legation here. But these per- 
sons did not approach the administration through that 
legation. They went directly to the Secretary of State. 
The President did not see them, because he was ill, but 
he addressed a letter to them. They were here from the 
30th of July until the 15th of August. That was subse- 



172 OUR DUTY TOWARD HAWAII. 

quent to the Secretary of the Navy's dispatch of the 
20th, about which time they landed at San Francisco. 
On the 20th of July we know that it was the intention 
of the administration to keep a ship at Honolulu. 
After the 20th of July the idea was lost sight of. 
What the cause of that change may be, I do not pretend 
to say. I cannot imagine for what reason it was right 
and proper to keep a ship at Hawaii up to the 20th of 
July, and why it then became all wrong to keep one there. 
The only event that intervened, so far as we know, in 
our relations with those countries, was the arrival of 
these men who are called, or who call themselves, royal 
commissioners. 

Mr. Gray. Will the Senator allow me to suggest to 
him a happening there which explains it, it seems to me, 
and gives a reason for the presence of that ship, and that 
was the election which was to be held there upon the new 
constitution and the substitution of a constitutional gov- 
ernment for the provisional government of July — the 
12th of July, I think. 

Mr. Lodge. I have not heard that explanation before. 
If the ship was kept there to see that there was order 
at the election and then withdrawn, that may be an expla- 
nation. 

Mr. Gray. Admiral Walker's correspondence and in- 
structions show it. 

Mr. Lodge. Admiral Walker, at all events, in his 
last dispatch, advised that a ship should be continued 
there. The news of the arrests and royalist con- 
spiracies continued to come through the press dispatches. 
They, too, are matters of public notoriety. Finally the 
outbreak came. The path was entirely clear for it : our 
ship had been withdrawn; the English ship had been 



OUR DUTY TOWARD HAWAII. 173 

withdrawn very recently, and there remained only the 
Japanese cruiser Esmeralda, which Japan had purchased 
from Chile. That is the sequence of events as they hap- 
pened, and every one has a right to draw conclusions from 
them. My own are very clear. 

My belief is that this administration is avowedly and 
openly hostile to the Hawaiian Government, and the de- 
fenders of the administration on this floor to-day have 
passed most of their time in denouncing that government. 
The refusal of the electoral right to the natives of that 
island, the preventing the natives of Hawaii from voting, 
has filled the soul of the Senator from Mississippi [Mr. 
George] with horror. The idea that any man should be 
deprived of the right of suffrage is abhorrent to him. The 
character of the present government has been dwelt upon 
and criticised with great acrimony. But I do not under- 
stand that the Senators are advocating the royalist gov- 
ernment, and yet it is between these two governments 
that we are obliged to choose. 

The Senator from Delaware cited with much earnest- 
ness yesterday the statement of President Dole, as re- 
ported by our intelligent "diplomatic representative," Mr. 
Willis. President Dole is reported to have said, after 
this attempted revolution had occurred, "that he was 
glad that no American ship was there," — a very natural 
exclamation under the circumstances, — because his gov- 
ernment had shown that it had the strength to maintain 
itself ; although I should like very much to know more 
fully than a telegraphic dispatch can give it, exactly just 
what he said in that relation. It is advanced, however, 
as a justification here for sending no ship to Hawaii and 
for the withdrawal of our ships, that President Dole de- 
clared that he was glad there was no ship there; and 



174 OUR DUTY TOWARD HAWAII. 

yet the moment he makes that declaration, the adminis- 
tration sends a ship ! It is impossible to make the testi- 
mony of President Dole work well both ways. 

But I believe, Mr. President, that the time has gone 
by in this country to bicker and dispute over what has 
happened in the past, over the conduct of Mr. Stevens, or 
the conduct of Mr. Blount, or the policy of this adminis- 
tration. It seems to me that our first duty now is, to give 
protection to the great American interests and to Ameri- 
can property and American citizens in those islands. When 
the statement of President Dole is urged with such force, 
Senators overlook entirely that there is an interest above 
Hawaiian interests, as I regard it, and that is the interest 
of the United States. Our own interests always seem to 
be forgotten in the debate by Senators on the other side. 
It is always the Bi-itish interest, or the Japanese interest, 
or the Hawaiian interest. But there is an interest of 
higher importance in my mind than any of them, and that 
is the interest of the United States of America. I am 
not prepared to concede that we should stop at the point 
of simply protecting American citizens and American 
property in those islands. I think we ought, with those 
islands in the disturbed state in which they have been, to 
keep a naval force there for the protection of American 
property and American citizens ; but I think we have 
incurred much larger and much greater responsibility 
than this. The Senate has passed a resolution in which 
it solemnly declared that we should regard the interfer- 
ence of any other nation in those islands as an act of 
hostility ; which is equivalent to saying that we should 
regard it practically as a casus belli if any other nation 
interfered with them. 

Mr. Kyle. I suggest to the Senator that I have the 



OUR DUTY TOWARD HAWAII. 175 

exact amount of American investments in the islands 
here, giving the annual amounts. 

Mr. Lodge. I should be very glad if the Senator 
would put that in later. My time is limited, otherwise I 
should be glad to yield to him now. 

Me. Butler. Before the Senator proceeds, I should 
be very much obliged if he would inform the Senate in 
what respect American property or American interests 
have been endangered or jeopardized in the Sandwich 
Islands. Has the Senator any proof whatever of it? 

Mr. Lodge. I think they were jeopardized by the re- 
moval of our ships of war. 

Mr. Butler. In what respect ? Has the Senator any 
proof whatever that one iota of American interests in 
those islands has been affected by the withdrawal of the 
ships ? 

Mr. Lodge. The fact that the islands were in a dis- 
turbed state, and that an insurrection had broken out, 
shows that American interests were in danger at any mo- 
ment. This administration has sent the Castine twelve 
thousand miles to Madagascar to look after American in- 
terests there, because there is a war between France and 
the Hovas. Are American interests in danger in Mada- 
gascar? Not that I know of, nor has any proof been 
brought to us. But because the administration consid- 
ered that in a disturbed country American interests might 
be in danger, they properly, in my judgment, sent a ship 
to Madagascar. On the same ground I think a ship 
ought to have been sent to the Hawaiian Islands, which is 
only twenty-five hundred miles away. 

Mr. Butler. Does the Senator see any necessity why 
a ship should be kept there ? 

Mr. Lodge. I do. That is the exact point. 



176 OUR DUTY TOWARD HAWAII. 

Mr. Butler. That is about the only point, as I un- 
derstand. There has not been, as I understand (if there 
has been I should be glad to be informed of it), the 
slightest proof before the Senate that a single American 
citizen or the interests of a single man from this country 
have been jeopardized or affected in the slightest degree 
by the withdrawal of that ship. 

Mr. Lodge. It is the uniform custom of every na- 
tion when there is a revolution and disturbance in another 
country to send ships of war there to protect its inter- 
ests, whether those interests have been actually assailed 
or not. We have sent ships to China, as the Senator from 
Ohio [Mr. Sherman] suggests, for the same reason ; it is 
constantly done, and my belief is that these vessels were 
taken out of the way to give clear road for an attempt to 
i^estore the Queen. I think they ought to have been 
there just at the time of the revolution, in order to pro- 
tect American interests. 

But, Mr. President, I do not stop at the point of pro- 
tecting American property. We passed this resolution, 
and we have assumed responsibility when we warned all 
other nations to hold their hands off from those islands. 
Our relations with those islands are totally different from 
our relations with any other country outside of the United 
States. When we have warned off other nations in that 
way, we assume great responsibility ; we say to the peo- 
ple in those islands that nobody else shall go there, that 
we shall regard it as an act of hostility if they do, and I 
think we owe it to them to assist them in the maintenance 
of peace and order. I believe that the only way now to 
deal with this question is to annex those islands. We 
have got to the point where we must settle this matter 
conclusively. I have no question in my own mind but 



OUR DUTY TOWARD HAWAII. 177 

that to-day there is a majority for annexation in both 
Houses of Congress ; that it will be still larger in the next 
Congress ; and that there is an overwhelming majority of 
the American people who believe that we should control 
those islands, and put an end to the disorders which exist 
there. If this Hawaiian Republic which now maintains 
order there is unjust in some of the provisions of law, we 
can remedy it if we take the islands ; but to stand as we 
do in the attitude of a dog in the manger, allowino- no- 
body to go there, taking our ships away at crucial mo- 
ments, leaving the islands open to disorder, a breeder of 
trouble with Japan, a breeder of trouble with Great Brit- 
ain possibly, is a policy utterly mistaken. It may, per- 
haps, seem unintelligible to some Senators, but the only 
motive I have in the matter is because I dislike to see 
American interests sacrificed. It may be merely a senti- 
mental feeling, although it is one which I cherish very 
strongly; but I cannot bear to see the American flag 
pulled down where it has once been run up, and I dislike 
to see the American foot go back where it has once been 
advanced. 



I 



NAVAL POLICY OF THE UNITED 
STATES 

SPEECH IN THE SENATE, MARCH 2, 1895, 



NAVAL POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



The Senate having under consideration the bill (H. R. 86C5) mak- 
ing appropriations for the naval service for the fiscal year ending 
June 30, 1896, and for other purposes — 

Mr. Lodge said : — 

Mr. President: I am not concerned to discuss the 
proceedings of the Paris Tribunal, to which the Senator 
from South Dakota [Mr. Pettigrew] has given so much 
attention this evening. Still less is it necessary for me to 
say anything in defense of the Senator from Alabama 
[Mr. Morgan], who is quite able to defend himself. 
But I will say this much, that although his diplomacy 
may not reach to the high intellectual standard of the 
Senator from South Dakota, I think if we were to follow 
the Senator from Alabama in the foreign policy of the 
United States, it would make very greatly for the welfare 
and the development of the country. 

I am not concerned either, Mr. President, to enter into 
the discussion of the people of Hawaii, whom the Senator 
from South Dakota has so freely abused by means of 
newspaper extracts to-night. I do not think that these 
are the vital questions involved here, so far as the people 
of the United States are concerned. Those islands, even 
if they were populated by a low race of savages, even if 
they were desert rocks, would still be important to this 
country from their position. On that ground, and on 
that ground alone, we ought to control and possess them. 



182 NAVAL POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

That they have a great commerce and fertile soil merely 
adds to the desirability of our taking them. The main 
thino- is that those islands lie there in the heart of the 
Pacific, the controlling point in the commerce of that 
great ocean. It has always been the policy of the United 
States to keep control of the Sandwich Islands, and from 
that policy there has never been known change or depart- 
ure by any party of any name until within the last two 
years. It is now proposed to take the first step toward 
finally establishing our control in Hawaii, by beginning a 
cable to those islands. To my mind it is the most impor- 
tant thing involved in any appropriation bill before Con- 
gress, for I consider that upon those islands rests a great 
part of the future commercial progress of the United 
States. 

The sea power has been one of the controlling forces 
in history. Without the sea power no nation has been 
really great. Sea power consists, in the first place, of a 
proper navy and a proper fleet ; but in order to sustain a 
navy we must have suitable posts for naval stations, strong 
places where a navy can be protected and refurnished. I 
will, with the permission of the Senate, now ask leave to pre- 
sent a map, because I cau save time by so doing. It will 
save my rehearsing a long list of names which describe 
very imperfectly the situation which I desire to depict as 
illustrating what is to me the controlling feature in the 
question of the Sandwich Islands. [A map was brought 
into the Chamber.] 

That map illustrates the point which I desire to make 
in regard to these islands. These red crosses [indicating], 
one here at Cape Breton, one here at Halifax, Bermuda, 
Jamaica, Santa Lucia, Trinidad, are the British naval 
stations on the Atlantic coast of the United States — six 




The i>olnt9 marked with a maltese cross are British naval stations and fortified places. The 
United States. The upper black line in each case shows the British and the lower the United Stati 




E lines in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans indicate the tonnage of British war ships and those of the 
mage of war ships in each ocean. 



NAVAL POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES. 183 

powerful places of arms and naval stations. The upper 
black line [indicating] is the tonnage of the British war- 
ships in the Atlantic, and that lower black line [indicating] 
is the tonnage of American war-ships. Here, these crosses 
represent British naval stations in the East and about 
Australia. Now, every one can see here at the Falkland 
Islands is a British naval station [indicating]. Here is 
another at Vancouver. Here is another at the Fiji Islands. 
In that great triangle marked by these three points [indi- 
cating] Great Britain does not hold a naval station. 
There in the centre of that triangle [indicating], in the 
heart of the Pacific, where I am now pointing, lie the 
Sandwich Islands. They are the key of the Pacific. If 
we are ever to build the Nicaraguan Canal, it would be 
folly to enter upon it if we were not prepared to take pos- 
session of those islands. There is the tonnage of the 
British war-ships in the Pacific [indicating]. There is 
the tonnage of the American war-ships [indicating]. 

Mr. Pettigrew. One question. I should like to 
know how long those war-ships of ours would prevent the 
British war-ships from taking those islands. 

Mr. Lodge. The Senator from South Dakota inquires 
how long I think those war-ships of ours would prevent 
the British war-ships from taking those islands. That is 
a curious question to come from a Senator a large part of 
whose speech was devoted to sneers at fear of England. 
But, Mr. President, for my part I fear England so little 
that I think if the flag of the United States were to be 
once hoisted over the Sandwich Islands the nation does 
not now exist that would be able to pull it down. 

Mr. President, it is on account of the military and 
strategic importance of the Sandwich Islands that I so 
greatly desire their control by the United States. They 



184 NAVAL POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

are particularly important, as I have said, if we once 
open, as I hope we shall open, the Nicaraguan Canal. 
All the great routes from San Francisco and from Van- 
couver, all the great routes to the East, to and from the 
Nicaraguan Canal, pass those islands. Those islands came 
here and offered themselves to this country. They were 
refused. We now have an opportunity to unite them to 
us, and the first step is a cable. In the hands of this 
country they would rapidly increase in population, and 
they would be a source of wealth and strength. I have no 
desire to see this country enter on an unlimited career of 
acquisition of colonial possessions. That is not necessary 
to us. It is not consonant to the principles of our govern- 
ment. But, Mr. President, as I have said once before, in 
speaking on this subject, we hold the citadel of our great- 
ness here on this continent within the borders of the 
United States, but we should not neglect the necessary 
outworks. That red line [indicating] which goes down 
the Atlantic coast shows the foresight of England. Does 
any one suppose that that naval station at the Bermudas was 
placed there because England did not have enough naval 
stations? She put it there because it is only a little over 
six hundred miles from New York. I have no idea that 
England desires to go to war with this country. I do not 
think she does ; but we may as well look facts in the face. 
This country is the rival and competitor of England for 
the trade and commerce of the world. The English-speak- 
ing people have been the great conquering race of modern 
times. The American colonies sprang from their loins ; 
and since we parted from England her statesmen have 
never failed to recognize that in men speaking her lan- 
guage, and of her own race she was to find her most formi- 
dable rivals. She has always opposed, thwarted, and 



NAVAL POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES. 185 

sought to injure us. She desires to keep her control of 
the great pathways o£ commerce. She desires to put us 
in a position where we cannot fight, if we wish, except 
at a great disadvantage. I have said that I do not fear 
a war. I do not think we have any reason to. Eng- 
land is quite as well aware as we are that, though she 
might bombard a few of our coast cities, her great ter- 
ritory of Canada in the event of a war would pass from 
her never to return. It would be as the Sultan said 
after the war in which he met the great disaster of the 
battle of Lepanto, but in which he got possession of 
the Island of Cyprus. He said: "You have singed my 
beard, but I have cut off your arms." We should cut off 
one of England's arms, in the case of a war, by taking Can- 
ada, and I have no idea that she would precipitate such 
a conflict. 

But, Mr. President, to neglect our navy and the out- 
lying islands which ought to belong to us, puts us in the 
position where all the advantage is on her side and none 
on ours. The control of these great points in the high- 
ways of commerce are the control of the sea power. It 
was the sea power in history which enabled Rome to crush 
Hannibal, perhaps the greatest military genius of all time ; 
it was the sea power which enabled England to bring 
Napoleon's empire to ruin ; it was the sea power more than 
anything else which crushed the rebellion in this country 
by blockading every port of the Southern States. It is the 
sea power which is essential to the greatness of every splen- 
did people. We are a great people ; we control this conti- 
nent; we are dominant in this hemisphere; we have too 
great an inheritance to be trifled with or parted with. It is 
ours to guard and to extend. We do not want too great 
a rival posted too near our coasts; and there, in the one 



186 NAVAL POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES 

place where the hand of England has not yet been reached 
out, to throw away those islands is madness, and must 
seem so to any man who looks beyond the present moment 
or who sees in this question anything but a mere matter 
of population or money. 

It matters not whether this cable costs four millions or 
forty millions, the question is whether we shall maintain 
the true American policy of the United States. It has 
been the policy of Marcy and Seward ; it has been the 
policy of both parties ; it is the American policy ; and 
closely joined with it is the question of the navy, which 
will come before us later. Mr. President, I desire an 
extra session as little as any man in this body, but I would 
never vote to strike out that cable, because it is the first 
step toward the development of American commerce, 
toward the taking of what belongs as of right to the Ameri- 
can people in their onward march. I would never vote 
to strike it out if it meant ten extra sessions. It is part 
of a great policy. It is not a mere appropriation of 
$500,000. 



NAVAL APPROPRIATION BILL. 

The Senate, as iu Committee of the Whole, resumed the considera- 
tion of the bill (H. R. 8665) making appropriations for the naval 
service for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1896, and for other pur- 
poses. 

Mr. Lodge. Mr. President, I am opposed to the 
reduction proposed by the Senate Committee on Appro- 
priations iu the number of the battleships authorized by 
the House. That number was recommended by the Sec- 
retary of the Navy, and has been authorized by the House 



NAVAL POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES. 187 

of Representatives. I think it is not an excessive authori- 
zation, in view of the fact that last year no authorization 
was made for any new ships whatever. I am also opposed 
to the amendment of the Committee on Appropriations strik- 
ing out six torpedo boats and reducing their number to 
three. I think we should preserve the number embodied 
in the bill by the House. I am quite willing, in fact I 
should be glad, to add the six gunboats proposed by the 
Committee on Appropriations, for I do not think there is 
any danger of our doing too much in the direction of 
building up the navy. I believe, on the contrary, that 
there is far more danger that we shall do too little. 

The question as to how large a navy we shall maintain 
is not the only one here, for whether the navy be large or 
small it must be properly balanced in its different branches. 
That is not the case with the vessels that we now have, 
either built or in process of construction. The cruiser 
class, as it is known, is in our navy numerous — out of 
proportion to the other arms of the service. The back- 
bone of the modern navy, that which makes it a formi- 
dable fighting force for purposes of defense, is the battle- 
ship. To-day we have an illustration of this fact in the 
condition of affairs in the Eastern waters. Any one who 
has read the account of the fighting there is aware that 
the Japanese have shown great capacity in their naval 
battles; but they have no battleships, and the result is 
that Russia, although with a very much smaller fleet in 
those waters, is capable of dominating the Japanese in 
that region, simply because Russia has one powerful 
modern battleship present, against which no unarmored 
cruiser could possibly stand. 

We do not need in a modern na^y a large proportion of 
battleships, but we do need a certain proportion. In our 



188 NAVAL POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

navy we have altogether too few. It is essential, in my 
judgment, that we should authorize and build those large 
armored ships as rapidly as possible. At best it is a 
very slow work. Despite the great advances made in 
this country in the building of ships of war, we still move 
very slowly. The last two battleships authorized by Great 
Britain (the Majestic, I think, is one ; I do not remem- 
ber at this moment the name of the other) were launched 
within one year after the keels were laid. We have not 
yet reached such a point of speed in construction. It is 
therefore more important for us to make liberal authoriza- 
tions, because more time will be consumed in the construc- 
tion of ships, and we need an efficient navy now. 

The new navy of the United States was begun under 
the administration of President Arthur by the Senator 
from New Hampshire [Mr. Chandler], who at that 
time was Secretary of the Navy. I have never thought 
that the Senator from New Hampshire has received all 
the credit that was due to him for the great work that he 
then did. It was not merely that he put a stop to the old 
and vicious practice of repairing worthless wooden ships, 
but he broke up an old and bad system of naval adminis- 
tration. He was the pioneer ; he was the man who first 
began the work out of which the new navy has risen, and 
it was this first step which was most difficult. The four 
ships authorized at that time are all useful and good ships 
to-day, too small, perhaps, according to the more recent 
ideas of naval architecture, but all good ships and of 
effective fighting capacity. The Senator from New Hamp- 
shire was succeeded by a Democrat, Secretary Whitney. 
He took up the work of building new ships where Mr. 
Chandler had left it. He was supported in his work 
by a Republican Senate. He in turn was succeeded 



NAVAL POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES. 189 

by a Republican Secretary of the Navy, and he was 
sustained in one Congress by a Democratic House. We 
now have again a Democratic Secretary, who is con- 
tinuing the policy of his predecessors. He has recom- 
mended, very wisely, that we should have three battle- 
ships and nine torpedo boats, recognizing that in those 
two great arms of the modern navy we are still very de- 
ficient. I think, Mr. President, that it would be a great 
mistake for us to hesitate to adopt his well-considered 
recommendation. 

The purpose of a navy is twofold. We require it first 
for what may be called police purposes, to send to foreign 
ports where American interests require jirotection. Within 
the past few months we have seen the necessity of an 
American war-ship at Madagascar, of another at Bluefields. 
Another has just been sent to Colombia, and another was 
sent to Honolulu, and, unfortunately, afterwards with- 
drawn. I mention these cases merely as illustrations of 
one function of the navy, the police purposes ; and the 
navy is important in that direction to commerce. Com- 
merce with distant countries will not be undertaken by 
the people of a nation which does not give adequate 
naval protection. Commerce follows the flag. I do not 
mean to say that the building up of a great navy necessa- 
rily builds up a great commerce, but I do say that with- 
out a sufficiently powerful navy it is impossible to take a 
place among the great commercial nations of the world. 
It is one of the essential conditions of a great and world- 
wide commerce. Of that commerce we do not to-day have 
our proper share. I hope to see it developed by wise legis- 
lation. I hope to see it nursed, encouraged, subsidized as 
England has wisely subsidized hers. Then, backed by a 
navy, we shall soon cease to pay out in freights vast sums 



190 NAVAL POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

of money, which to-day constitute the heaviest drain upon 
the gold resources of the country. 

That is one function of the navy. The other function 
is that of national defense. We have great coasts on the 
Atlantic and the Pacific. The work of land fortification 
proceeds of necessity very slowly. Modern war, more- 
over, has demonstrated that in many cases, in most cases 
perhaps, land fortifications are unable to cope with modern 
ships of war. From the time of Farragut's great fights 
at New Orleans and Mobile, the power of ships to pass 
fortifications has been established. The defense of the 
coast, then, must lie in the navy of the country. It is 
the easiest, the cheapest, and the surest method of defense. 
I should not advocate the building of a navy as large as 
that of England. It is totally unnecessary. England is 
obliged to keep ships in all parts of the world. Even if 
war were to come, she could not strip the Channel of a 
fleet. She would have to keep shijjs in the Mediterranean. 
She would be obliged to keep still other ships to guard 
her great possessions in the East. But we, Mr. President, 
ought to have a navy strong enough to meet and fight at 
sea any fleet which England or any other country could in 
time of war bring against our coast. There is, I repeat, 
no simpler, no surer, no cheaper method of defense. 
Moreover, although we naturally think of England as the 
great danger to this country when we speak of war, as 
the country with which we are more likely, perhaps, to 
have war, if a war is to come, than with any other nation, 
it is well not to forget that there has arisen in the East 
a new sea power. Japan has won lately some naval vic- 
tories which have impressed greatly all students of those 
subjects. I noticed on the other side, when I referred 
some days ago to Japan as a danger in connection with 



NAVAL POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES. 191 

Hawaii, there was a disposition to laugh at it and to sneer 
at our being troubled about the Japanese. 

Mr. President, I have here upon my desk an article 
from the London " Spectator," a journal of the very high- 
est standing, called "The Warning of Wei-Hai-Wei," 
where the last naval fight took place. I will not detain 
the Senate by reading the article, but I will print it with 
what I have said to-day. It is pointed out in that article 
that Japan is a threatening danger to England in the 
East ; that she is a great rising naval power. There I 
find described the fight at Wei-Hai-Wei, where the Jap- 
anese torpedo boats went in and destroyed the Chinese 
ships. The second attack made by those boats, the second 
and successful attack of the Japanese torpedo boats, was 
a great feat of war. They went in in weather so bitter 
and so cold that in one of the boat's crew, when they 
struck the Chinese ship, the lieutenant and two of the 
men on the boat were frozen to death at their posts. Yet 
those boats went on, and went on victoriously, and de- 
stroyed the Chinese cruisers. I refer to that battle, MrA\ 
President, merely to show that the Japanese have dis- 
played the qualities of a great fighting race at sea. They 
understand their future ; they realize the prospects which t 
are opening up before them ; they have already ordered ■ [ 
two battleships of fourteen thousand tons each of the 
latest modern type. They propose to make themselves 
the sea power of the East ; and if they get indemnity, as 
they undoubtedly will, from China, they will build more 
ships. There they are, our nearest neighbor on the Pa- 
cific ; there- they are, with Hawaii lying halfway be- 
tween us. Remember that they are a new people ; they 
have just whipped somebody, and they are in a state of 
mind when they think they can whip anybody. It is a 



192 NAVAL POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

very dangerous state of mind for any people to be in, 
dangerous for themselves and for others. Although I 
have but very little doubt of the result to Japan if she 
should get into a war with England, or with France, or 
with Russia, or with the United States, yet the surest way 
to prevent such a war, and avoid such a danger at Hawaii 
or upon our Pacific coast, is to have a fleet the mere ex- 
istence of which is a guarantee of peace. 

Mr. President, the Senator from Maryland used the 
argument, which I have heard used so many times, that 
naval types rapidly became obsolete, and that the new 
ships must in time be repaired. That argument, pressed 
to its logical conclusion, would mean that we should never 
have any ships or any navy at all. It would be just as 
reasonable to say that we must give up the army because 
rifles had been invented so deadly that it would not be 
worth while to organize an army until we could determine 
whether there was not some other rifle to be found more 
deadly still. 

Mr. Gorman. I know the Senator from Massachusetts 
does not desire to misrepresent me. 

Mr. Lodge. Certainly not, Mr. President. 

Mr. Gorman. I made no such statement to-day, and 
I have never done so. 

Mr. Lodge. I did not intend to quote the Senator as 
saying what I have said about the army. I used that 
merely as an illustration. 

Mr. Gorman. Nor about the navy. I have declared 
distinctly on every appropriation bill for the past twelve 
years that I was in favor of, and I have voted for, the 
construction of all of these classes of vessels, from torpedo 
boats to battleships. My suggestion was that it was not 
wise to go on too rapidly with the improvements which 



NAVAL POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES. 193 

are being made, and which were made under Secretary- 
Whitney, Secretary Tracy, and Secretary Chandler; and 
I believe improvements will continue to be made both in 
armor and in guns ; and, therefore, the wise policy was, 
while going on with moderate progress, not to make too 
great an increase at once. 

Mr. Lodge. I know the Senator from Maryland has 
always been a friend to the navy, and has always hitherto, 
at least, voted for the fullest appropriations for that pur- 
pose ; but I thought that he used an argument which I have 
heard many times in the other House when I have had 
occasion to discuss naval matters, and which, it seems to 
me, if pressed to a logical conclusion, means that we should 
build no navy at all. If the Senator uses it merely as an 
argument for modei*ation in building, then I can only say 
that I think the proposition of the House of Representa- 
tives for the construction of the navy is a moderate and 
reasonable one. 

Mr. President, I do not regard the navy of the United 
States as a question in which the inhabitants of the coast 
alone have an interest. It is to me a great national in- 
terest, associated with national dignity, national honor, 
and the protection of the flag. It is also to me an inte- 
gral part of our foreign policy and an essential element of 
our commercial policy. I think that of late years too 
much attention has been given to small matters of leg-is- 
lation, too much, perhaps, to economic questions, and too 
little attention to those great and far-reaching issues on 
which the future of the republic depends. "We have 
spent enough money in building ugly public buildings 
alone, to fit out the greatest navy in the world. I am not 
opposed to public buildings ; I think it is proper to build 
them. I am not opposed to them, and have never voted 



194 NAVAL POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

against proper appropriations in any interest in any part 
of the country, and I never mean to, for I do not believe 
in an illiberal policy for the Government of the United 
States. But this question seems to me to be one wholly 
above all local interests, one in which the national honor 
and the national interest are at stake, one on which de- 
pends the right foreign policy of the country. A navy is 
necessary to the defense of our coast, to the defense of 
our houor, to the protection of Americans everywhere in 
the world. 

Mr. President, the proposition of the House of Repre- 
sentatives is moderate, and I think it ought to receive the 
support of every one who believes in the necessity of giv- 
ing to the United States the navy to which she is entitled. 
We need no great army ; we do need a great navy, so 
that there should not be a nation in the world that could 
attack us with any hope of success. 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 

SPEECH IN THE SENATE, DECEMBER 30, 1895. 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 



Mr. President : On the first day of the session I in- 
troduced a joint resolution reciting the declaration made 
by Mr. Monroe in his message of December, 1823, and 
giving to that declaration the formal sanction of Congress. 
I had not intended to address the Senate upon that reso- 
lution until it had received the consideration of the Com- 
mittee on Foreign Relations, and, as I ventured to hope, 
been favorably reported by them. But since then the Presi- 
dent has sent in his message on the Venezuelan difficulty, 
and Congress, without a dissenting voice, has authorized 
the commission which the President requested. This action 
on the part of the President and of Congress has led to 
a great deal of discussion and much wild talk. Those 
persons in this country who, for one reason or another, 
believe that we should never do anything which can clash 
with English interests have filled the air with their cries 
and lamentations. It is true that they are more vocal than 
numerous, but they are very vocal indeed. This outcry, 
however, coupled with London's attempt to frighten Con- 
gress by producing a stock panic, has tended to confuse 
the issue and to mislead many persons. When men, usually 
sane, cable to London such frantic nonsense as that the 
Senate is controlled by a jingo mob in the galleries, by 
" the gentlemen of the pavement " like the French conven- 
tion during the Reign of Terror, it seems as if a little cool 



198 THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 

explanation of the real situation would not be out o£ place. 
I shall therefore venture to ask the attention of the Senate 
while I state very briefly the case upon which the Presi- 
dent and Congress, charged with the heavy responsibility 
of government, have acted without a dissenting voice. I 
shall try to show what the Monroe Doctrine is, what it 
means to the United States, and that it is vitally involved 
in this Venezuelan controversy. I shall also show that this 
is not a petty question of a South American boundary, 
but one in which, so far as it concerns us, the safety and 
the honor of the United States and its place in the scale 
of nations are all deeply involved. 

These are the gravest questions which can confront any 
people, and must be treated by those charged with the 
conduct of public affairs with dignity, calmness, and firm- 
ness. Wild denunciation of public men responsible for the 
nation's peace and safety and bound to protect her rights 
are as wholly out of place on the one hand as bluster, 
threats, and violent language are on the other. The war 
scare and the war talk do not come from those charged 
with the responsibility of government, but from outside 
these walls, and chiefly from the stock market and from 
the meetings of the advocates of peace. No responsible 
public man, let me say now, desires war, or seeks in any 
way to promote it. We do not believe, here at least, that 
there is any danger of war; but we are all agreed that 
honorable peace can be most surely maintained by a firm 
and temperate upholding of the rights and interests of 
our country. 

Two cardinal principles have always governed the United 
States in their relations with foreign nations. Although 
in late years these two principles may have been lost sight 
of, they have never been departed from. The first was 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 199 

laid down by Washington, in what was known at the time 
as the neutrality policy. The doctrine then declared was 
that we intended as a nation to hold ourselves entirely 
aloof from European politics, to form no entangling al- 
liances, and to take no part in the affairs of Europe. To- 
day this proposition seems like a truism, but when it was 
declared by Washington with reference to the great strug- 
gle then going on between France and the rest of Europe 
it aroused a storm of opposition. As British colonies we 
had necessarily been involved in European affairs wher- 
ever England was engaged. A war in Europe, whether 
dynastic or territorial, reached always to the American 
continent. The question of the Spanish succession filled 
New York and New England with the horrors of Indian 
warfare, and when Frederick the Great faced all Europe 
in arms, Pitt declared that he would conquer Canada 
upon the plains of Germany. Thus the colonists of North 
America had come to look across the Atlantic to know 
whether they would have war or peace, and the habits of 
thought of one hundred and fifty years were not effaced 
by the fact that we had achieved our political independ- 
ence. 

When the struggle of the French Revolution began, 
Americans, still under the influence of the colonial tradi- 
tions, felt with a natural sympathy that they should join 
hands with the nation which had helped them to gain their 
independence. But if this view was natural, it was also 
colonial. Fortunately for us, we had at the head of our 
government a great statesman, who saw, with the clear 
vision which no passion could dim, that the policy befitting 
the colonies was wholly unsuited to a nation. As a part 
of the British Empire, the struggles of Europe were vital 
to us. As the United States of America, as a free and 



200 THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 

independent nation, we had no concern with them. So 
Washington laid down the principle of neutrality in the 
European wars then raging, and maintained it in the 
midst of obloquy and attack. It was left to a later gen- 
eration to appreciate rightly the far-reaching wisdom and 
the high courage which dictated the action of our great 
first President. When Washington went out of office 
and gave to the country his Farewell Address, he stated 
the principle which he had carried into action in words 
which cannot be improved, and which have been the guide 
of all succeeding statesmen in the United States upon this 
point from that day to this : — 

The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations 
is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as 
little political connection as possible. So far as we have already 
formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good 
faith. Here let us stop. 

Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none 
or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in fre- 
quent controversies the causes of which are essentially foreign to 
our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to im- 
plicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of 
her politics or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her 
friendships or enmities. 

Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to 
pursue a different course. If we remain one people, under an 
efficient government, the period is not far ofp when we may defy 
material injury from external annoyance ; when we may take 
such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time 
resolve upon to be scrupulously respected ; when belligerent na- 
tions, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, 
will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation ; when we may 
choose peace or war as our interest, guided by justice, shall 
counsel. 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 201 

Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation ? Why- 
quit our own stand to go upon foreign ground ? Why, by inter- 
weaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle 
our peace and prospex'ity in the toils of European ambition, rival- 
ship, interest, humor, or caprice ? 

In the years immediately following the retirement of 
Washington the Government of the United States, despite 
the change of parties in control of the administration, ad- 
hered strictly to Washington's policy. For the protection 
of American citizens abroad they fought a naval war with 
the Barbary States, but held rigidly aloof from any con- 
nection with European affairs during the troublous times 
of the First Empire. After the downfall of Napoleon, 
however, matters in Europe took a new turn. The Holy 
Alliance, consisting of Russia, Prussia, and Austria, was 
formed, with the avowed object of restoring and maintain- 
ing the old forms of absolutism which had really been de- 
stroyed in the French Revolution, although the statesmen 
of the Holy Alliance were unable to understand it. 

At the congress of Aix la Chapelle in 1818, the views 
of the Holy Alliance as to the necessity of suppressing all 
movements against absolutism were strongly advocated. 
In 1820 another congress was held at Troppau and later 
at Laybach, and there it was proposed to unite in repress- 
ing the revolution which had broken out in Naples. Eng- 
land protested, and Austria suppressed the revolt alone. 
In 1822 another congress met at Verona, this time to deal 
with the affairs of Spain. There was an insurrection in 
the peninsula itself, and the Spanish-American colonies 
were in open revolt. Again it was proposed that the 
great powers should unite in suppressing these revolution- 
ary movements, and again England declined to take part. 
A French army crossed the Pyrenees and suppressed the 



202 THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 

insurrection in Spain. The Holy Alliance desired to go 
still further, and reduce the revolted colonies to subjection. 
Against this Canning vigorously protested, and it was to 
this he referred in later times when he made the famous 
declaration that he had called in the New World to redress 
the balance of the Old. In pursuance of this policy, Mr. 
Canning, in August, 1823, proposed to our minister, Mr. 
Rush, that England and the United States should publish 
a joint declaration to the effect that, while these two gov- 
ernments desired no portion of these colonies for themselves, 
they would not view with indifference any foreign inter- 
vention in their affairs or their acquisition by any third 
power. Mr. Rush replied that the United States would 
join in this declaration, provided that England would ac- 
knowledge the independence of the Spanish colonies. This 
Mr. Canning declined to do at the moment, but he, at the 
same time, announced to the Prince de Polignac that Great 
Britain would not permit any European intervention in 
Spanish-American affairs. It is interesting to observe 
that the first public proposition looking to the exclusion 
of Europe from the Western Hemisphere was made by 
Great Britain, and accompanied by a renunciation, on her 
part, of any desire to acquire new territory there herself. 
The schemes of the Holy Alliance made it clear to 
American statesmen that the time had come when the 
United States must adopt and declare her policy with re- 
ference to the relations of Europe with the Western Hem- 
isphere. Just at the time when Mr. Canning was mak- 
ing his proposals to Mr. Rush, in July, 1823, John Quincy 
Adams, then Secretary of State, said to Baron Tuyl, the 
Russian minister, that " we should contest the right of 
Russia to any territorial establishment on this continent, 
and that we should assume distinctly the principle that 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 203 

the American continents are no longer subjects for any- 
new European colonial establishments." The question 
of our policy in regard to the relations of Europe with 
the Americas, owing to the projects of the Holy Alliance, 
had assumed such gravity and importance that President 
Monroe asked upon it the opinions of Madison and Jef- 
ferson. Mr. Madison replied that our relations to the 
new republics were such as to call for our efforts to de- 
feat the meditated crusade. Mr. Jefferson said : — 

The question presented by the letters you have sent me is the 
most momentous wliicli has ever been offered to my contempla- 
tion since that of independence. That made us a nation ; this 
sets our compass and points the course which we are to steer 
through the ocean of time opening on us. And never could we 
embark on it under circumstances more auspicious. Our first 
and fundamental maxim should be never to entangle ourselves in 
the broils of Europe. Our second, never to suffer Europe to 
intermeddle with cisatlantic affairs. America, North and South, 
has a set of interests distinct from those of Europe, and peculiarly 
her own. She should therefore have a system of her own, sej)- 
arate and apart from that of Europe. 

The words of Jefferson may be commended to the at- 
tention of those pei-sons who think the operations of a for- 
eign power in South America of less importance than the 
temporary price of stocks. 

The result of the consultations thus held by President 
Monroe and of the views of Mr. Adams, which he strongly 
urged, appeared in the following passages of the Presi- 
dent's message of December 2, 1823 : — 

In the discussions to which this interest has given rise and 
in the arrangements by which they may terminate, the occa- 
sion has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in 
which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, 



204 THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 

that the American continents, by the free and independent con- 
dition which they h,ave assumed and maintained, are henceforth 
not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any 

European powers. . • . 

In the wars of the European powers, in matters relating to 
themselves, we have never taken any part, nor does it comport 
with our policy so to do. It is only when our rights are in- 
vaded or seriously menaced that we resent injuries or make 
preparation for our defense. With the movements in this hem- 
isphere we are, of necessity, more immediately connected, and 
by causes which must be obvious to all enlightened and impar- 
tial observers. . . . 

We owe it, therefore, to candor, and to the amicable relations 
existing between the United States and those powers, to declare 
that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend 
their system in any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to 
our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies 
of any European powers we have not interfered and shall not in- 
terfere ; but with the governments who have declared their inde- 
pendence and maintained it, and whose independence we have on 
great consideration and on just principles acknowledged, we 
could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing 
them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny by any 
European power, in any other light than as the manifestation of 
an unfriendly disposition toward the United States. 

These exti-acts contain what has ever since been known 
as the Monroe Doctrine. The principle which it laid down 
was the necessary corollary of Washington's neutrality 
policy, and covered three points. First, no more Euro- 
pean colonies on these continents ; second, no extension of 
the European political system to any portion of this hemi- 
sphere ; third, no European interposition in the affairs 
of the Spanish-American republics. That part of the 
declaration which related to European intervention was 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 205 

received by Great Britain with approval, and was warmly 
praised by Mr. Brougham, Sir James Mcintosh, and Lord 
John Russell, some of whose remarks have been already 
quoted to the Senate by the Senator from Illinois in his 
able speech upon this question. In the succeeding ad- 
ministration President Adams, who may be considered as 
the real author of the Monroe Doctrine, and Mr. Clay, 
then Secretary of State, attempted to draw closer the 
bond between ourselves and the South American repub- 
lics by the Panama Congress, and Mr. Adams reiterated 
the Monroe Doctrine in his message of March 15, 1826. 
In the course of the debate upon sending the delegates to 
the Panama Congress, Mr. Webster spoke as follows : — 

I look on the message of December, 1823, as forming a bright 
page in our history. I will neither help to erase it or tear it out ; 
nor shall it be by any act of mine blurred or blotted. It did 
honor to the sagacity of the government, and I will not diminish 
that honor. It elevated the hopes and gratified the patriotism 
of the people. Over those hopes I will not bring a mildew ; nor 
will I put that gratified patriotism to shame. 

The Panama Congress, owing to the question of slavery, 
came to nothing so far as the United States was concerned ; 
but the passages which I have quoted show sufficiently the 
view taken of the doctrine by our leading statesmen at the 
period of its declaration. In 1845 President Polk reiter- 
ated the Monroe Doctrine, and spoke as follows : — 

The existing rights of every European nation should be re- 
spected ; but it is due alike to our safety and our interests that 
the efficient protection of our laws should be extended over our 
whole territorial limits, and that it should be distinctly an- 
nounced to the world as our settled policy that no future Euro- 
pean colony or dominion shall, with our consent, be planted or 
established on any part of the North American Continent. 



206 THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 

Three years later, President Polk, in a special message, 
called the attention of Congress to the appeal of the white 
population of Yucatan for help against the Indians. 
They offered to transfer Yucatan to the United States. 
The President stated that while he did not recommend 
the acquisition of Yucatan, he advised its temporary occu- 
pation in order to prevent its passing into the hands of 
any European power, which would be an infringement of 
the Monroe Doctrine. A bill was introduced for the oc- 
cupation of Yucatan, and was opposed by Mr. Calhoun, 
on the ground that the Monroe Doctrine was only intended 
for the temporary purpose of resisting the schemes of the 
Holy Alliance. The war in Yucatan came to an end, and 
the bill never reached a vote. The incident is of interest 
only as showing that Mr. Polk's administration sustained 
the Munroe Doctrine in its widest application, and that 
Mr. Calhoun is the only American statesman of any 
standing who has tried to limit its scope. 

Thus far I have merely sketched the history of the Doc- 
trine, to show the view taken of it by all our administra- 
tions and by all our statesmen, with one exception. I 
now come to the only attempt which has been made by an 
outside power to break down the Monroe Doctrine and 
set it at nauo-ht. In 1861 Great Britain, France, and 
Spain entered into a convention to unite in compelling the 
payment of certain claims which they held against Mexico. 
When the allied troops disembarked at Vera Cruz, it was 
discovered that the Emperor of the French intended to 
go much further than had been agreed upon, and to do 
nothing less than place an Austrian prince upon the 
Mexican throne. Thereupon England and Spain with- 
drew, and France was left to carry on her design alone. 
At that time our hands were tied by our great Civil War, 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 207 

but we at once demanded explanation from France, and 
continued to protest against her conduct. During the entire 
period of the French occupation we recognized only the gov- 
ernment of Juarez. Mr, Seward consistently pressed our 
views upon France, and the proceedings of the French 
were denounced in Congress with so much indignation that 
in 1863 we were on the verge of war. The moment the 
Civil War was over Mr. Seward demanded the withdrawal 
of the French troops. Our hands were free, and General 
Sheridan, with a powerful army, was ordered to the Mexi- 
can frontier. Under this pressure, after some months of 
diplomatic delay, the Emperor was forced to give way. 
The French troops were withdrawn, and the Emperor's 
Mexican conspiracy, which had begun with treachery and 
bad faith, ended in humiliation, failure, and the execution 
of the unfortunate Maximilian. When Napoleon sent out 
his expedition, English writers hastened to declare that he 
had done a great political service by extinguishing the 
Monroe Doctrine ; but when our war was over and we had 
forced the French armies from Mexico and destroyed the 
wretched empire they had tried to set up, it was plainly 
seen that the Monroe Doctrine had been signally vindi- 
cated, and that an attempt to infringe it had brought 
nothing but shame and disaster to the European power 
which had made the experiment. Sir Edward Creasy, a 
distinguished historian, with a greater sense of truth than 
those writers who had exulted over the buccaneering en- 
terprises of the French, speaks as follows in his " First 
Platform of International Law " : — 

The United States (occupied by their own Civil "War which was 
then raging) did not actually send troops to oppose the French 
in Mexico, but they steadily refused to recognize Maximilian, 



208 THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 

or any other government except a republican government, in 
Mexico ; and the language of their statesmen exhibited the 
fullest development of the Monroe Doctrine. 

Since 1823 there have been many eases in which the 
Monroe Doctrine has been cited and discussed, but until 
the present time the French invasion of Mexico has been 
the only instance in which it has been openly disregarded 
and actually infringed by a European power. A second 
case has now arisen, and the maintenance of the Monroe 
Doctrine is again threatened as it was by the French in 
18G2. This second attack upon the principles of the 
Monroe Doctrine comes from Great Britain, and is made 
under cover of a boundary dispute with Venezuela, while 
Lord Salisbury in his letter to Mr. Olney openly assails 
the validity of the doctrine itself. To understand the 
importance of this controversy and how deeply the very 
existence of the Monroe Doctrine is involved in it, it will 
be necessary to trace very briefly the history of the dis- 
pute between Great Britain and Venezuela, which has now 
reached a crisis affecting most gravely the honor, the in- 
terests, the rights, and the well-settled policy of the 
United States. 

The dispute over the boundaries of Guiana is an inher- 
itance bequeathed to Venezuela and Great Britain by 
Spain and Holland. The successful revolt in 1810 of the 
South American colonies of Spain established the inde- 
pendence of what is now known as Venezuela. That inde- 
pendence was finally recognized by Spain in a decree on 
the 27th of May, 1845, in which Her Catholic Majesty 
Dona Isabel II expressly renounces the sovereignty of 
the American territory known "under the old name of 
Captaincy General of Venezuela, now Republic of Vene- 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 209 

zuela." Among the thirteen provinces enumerated in this 
act of renunciation and cession is the Province of Guiana, 
which measures 20,149 square leagues, while the remainder 
of the republic measures only 20,149 square leagues. It is 
the controversy over the control of this vast expanse of ter- 
ritory, rich in minerals, fertile in soil, and drained by navi- 
gable rivers, which has now reached such an acute stage. 

Great Britain's claim is derived from Holland. By 
the treaty of the 13th of August, 1814, the establish- 
ments of Demerara, Essequibo, and Berbice were ceded 
to Great Britain, and the supplemental agreement called 
for by the terms of the treaty subsequently confirmed this 
partition. Unfortunately the lines of demarcation be- 
tween Venezuela and British Guiana were not specifically 
defined in either of the treaties above mentioned — a cir- 
cumstance England has not overlooked. It therefore be- 
comes a question of paramount importance in any exami- 
nation into the merits of this controversy to determine by 
other means the territorial jurisdiction of Spain in 1810, 
and of Holland in 1814. The earlier treaties, documents, 
and ordinances are happily ample and explicit upon these 
points. Lord Salisbury now puts forward a claim to title 
based on conquest and military occupation in 1796 ; but as 
the treaty which confirms these conquests only describes 
them as the establishments of Berbice, Demerara, and 
Essequibo, this new claim does not affect the argument 
except as a mere assertation. 

It is hardly worth while to do more than barely allude 
to the fact that the northern part of South America be- 
longed to Spain by virtue of original discovery. Tliere is 
no princii:)le of the law of nations now better established 
than the doctrine of discovery. Calvo, an eminent au- 
thority upon international law, says : — 



210 THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 

The discovery of America and those (discoveries) vphich have 
been made at the close of the Middle Ages in Asia and Africa 
have Introduced into international law a new mode of acquisi- 
tion and possession. We speak of the priority of discovery, of 
the first occupation, and of colonization. 

It is beyond dispute that what is now Venezuela and 
British and Dutch Guiana was originally Spanish terri- 
tory. 

Columbus discovered the mouth of the Orinoco in 
1498. In the following year Alonzo de Ojeda, a Spanish 
subject, made further discoveries in the same region. In 
1500 Vicente Yanez Pinzon, a companion of Columbus, 
explored the principal mouths of the Orinoco. In 1531 
Dieo-o de Ordaz naviojated this river as far as the mouth 
of the Meta. These acts of discovery and exploration on 
the part of Spain were soon followed by colonization. 
For many years her only rival in South America was 
Portugal, and in the treaty of 1750 between these two 
powers Portugal bound herself to recognize and support 
the right of Spain to territory lying between the Amazon 
and the Orinoco. Thus Portugal, the only country that 
can claim with Spain the honor of original discovery, sol- 
emnly recognized the justice of the Spanish contention to 
what is now disputed territory. It is interesting to note 
in this connection that a few years later (5th of March, 
1768) a royal cedula fixed the Amazon as the southern 
limit of Spanish Guiana. 

It was not until the northern coast of Spanish America 
had been substantially preempted by discovery that Hol- 
land began to seek a foothold in that part of the Nevir 
World. During their long war of emancipation the 
Dutch had succeeded in planting several colonies in 
Guiana. When Spain, whose vassal Holland had been, 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 211 

became a party to the treaty of Munster in 1648, she 
legalized the Dutch pretensions. By article 5 each power 
was to retain territory already possessed and held in the 
East and West Indies and on the coast of Asia, Africa, 
and America. It was further stipulated that neither 
power should molest or disturb the garrisons and strong- 
holds of the other. This treaty proved to be a fruitful 
source of misunderstanding and irritation. Each power 
soon came to accuse the other of violating its provisions. 
Dutch expeditions beyond the Essequibo were repulsed 
and driven back by the Spaniards repeatedly, and there 
is no evidence to show that Spain ever acquiesced for a 
single moment in the Dutch pretensions to a rood of land 
west of the Essequibo. On the contrary, when the direc- 
tor-general of the Dutch colony of Essequibo, on the 30th 
of September, 1758, sent a note of protest to the Spanish 
authorities complaining that the Spanish troops had mo- 
lested aud driven the Dutch away from a post which 
stood on one of the banks of the Cuyuni, a vigorous re- 
sponse was returned, saying " that the river Cuyuni and 
its dependencies belonged to His Catholic Majesty, and 
that consequently, as the Dutch had entered the Spanish 
dominion, he would make no restitution." The river re- 
ferred to there, let me say, is far to the east of the Orinoco 
and Point Barima, where the Schomburgk line ends. 

It does not appear that the Dutch sought to con- 
tinue further these diplomatic amenities. That they made 
spasmodic attempts at further extension is unquestioned, 
and on these Lord Salisbury in his reply to Secretary 01- 
ney appears to rely, but it is equally certain that none of 
their attempts ever attained anything like the dignity of 
permanent and recognized settlements, or were ever ad- 
mitted by Spain. Indeed, in 1788 Antonio Lopez de la 



212 THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 

Puente, who had been sent by the Spanish governor of 
Guiana to explore the Cuyuni River as far as the limits 
of the Dutch colony, presented his report. In it he said : — 

That having descended the river as far as the curve which 
it makes, in order to ponr into the Essequibo, where the posses- 
sions of the Dutch colonies commence, he found the first Dutch 
houses at the mouth of the Masaruni, i. e. precisely at the curve, 
no new territories having been encroached upon by them up to 
that time. 

This, then, was the situation in 1791 when, on the 23d 
of June, a treaty of extradition was concluded at Aran- 
juez between Spain and Holland. The objects of this 
treaty, as defined in the preamble, were for " the mutual 
restoration of deserters and runaways between their re- 
spective colonies" and to " put a stop to desertion and its 
pernicious consequences." The first article of the treaty 
recites that " complaints of desertion have been more fre- 
quent, to wit, between Puerto Rico, and St. Eustace, Core 
and Curacao, the Spanish establishments on the Ori- 
noco and Essequibo, Demerara, Berbice and Surinam." 
An examination of the map to-day shows that the British 
province of Berbice extends from Surinam to the River 
Berbice, Demerara from the Berbice to the Demerara ; 
and on the same principle the province of Essequibo would 
extend from the Demerara to the River Essequibo, which 
may or may not include the valley watered by that stream. 
We have just seen, also, from the preceding report (1788) 
that the Dutch establishment of Essequibo did not extend 
beyond the mouth of the Masaruni, and certainly it is a fair 
inference to assume that the Dutch themselves did not 
put forward any serious claim to territory virtually beyond 
the Essequibo. This presumption is further supported, 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 213 

Indeed, by Dutch testimony of the most unimpeachahle 
sort. No less an official than Mr. Six, secretary of the 
Dutch East India Company, sent in 1794 a communica- 
tion to Senor Corral, the Spanish minister to Holland, in 
which he makes the following significant admission : — 

The captain, pilot, and crew of the Spanish merchant ship 
Neustra Senora de la Concepcion, after having been perfectly 
well treated by the governor-general of Surinam, were conveyed 
to Moroco, west of the Essequibo, as having been Spanish terri- 
tory, so that they could thence go as on their own land to tbe 
nearest Spanish-American town. 

Clearly, then, the River Moroco, by common consent 
and by the admission of the Dutch in 1794, was a Span- 
ish possession, and the Moroco is far to the east of the 
Orinoco and the Schomburgk line. There could be no 
dispute by the Dutch to territory beyond the Moroco. 
Their broadest claim in 1794 was confined to the few 
leagues between the Moroco and the Essequibo. 

Of the Dutch colonies enumerated in the treaty of 
Aranjuez, three, to wit, Essequibo, Demerara, and Ber- 
bice, as stated at the outset, were substantially ceded to 
England by the treaty of London of the 13th of August, 
1814. By this act of alienation England succeeded to the 
title of Holland. England is entitled to every foot of 
territory that was Dutch in 1814, and to nothing more. 
Venezuela is heir to the rights of Spain and nothing more. 
No act of aggression or encroachment since can change or 
alter the relative position of the two countries. No new 
rights have accrued to either side since the 13th of August, 
1814. 

What Holland's claim included in 1791 and 1794 we 
have already seen. It is absurd to say that any Dutch 



214 THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 

aggressions beyond the Essequlbo subsequent to 1794 and 
prior to 1814 conveyed to Holland any color of title by 
prescription. A period of something less than a quar- 
ter of a century is hardly " time immemorial " within the 
meaning of the rule. Neither will it be seriously con- 
tended that such Dutch occupation of disputed territory 
as did occur was " peaceable." It is manifest, then, that 
any claim to a title by prescrij^tion must be invalid. Still 
less is it necessary to fortify Spain's claim by any supple- 
mental quotations from further ordinances and decrees. 
It may be said in passing, however, that the list is by no 
means exhausted. Among other additional and confirma- 
tory evidence that the Spanish boundary terminated only 
with the Essequibo, reference may be had to the follow- 
ing documents : Note of Gregorio Espinosa, governor of 
Cumana, 1st of February, 1742; order of 4th of Feb- 
ruary, 1779, giving directions for establishing settlements 
in the eastern part of Guiana; report of Felipe de Inciarte, 
1st of November, 1779 ; royal mandate of 1st of October, 
1780, commanding the aforesaid Inciai'te to drive the 
Dutch away from land at the northwest of the Essequibo 
as " trespassers." 

We have, however, very fortunately, some important in- 
dependent testimony as to the boundaries during this pe- 
riod between 1794 and 1814. In 1801-04 the French geo- 
grapher and agent of the French government at Caracas 
explored this country, and published the result of his ex- 
plorations and of his examination of historical documents 
in three volumes, with maps, in 1805. Mr. De Pons says : 
" These boundaries are established by treaties at the River 
Essequibo, forty leagues or more southward of the Ori- 
noco." He then adds, " The Dutch have, disregarding 
treaty lines, encroached on the Spanish possessions eight 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 215 

or ten leagues running northwest, and encouraged the 
Carib Indians " — then under Spanish dominion — " not 
to recognize any foreign power." He shows at length how 
the Spaniards have repeatedly declared this region to be 
theirs and have planted in it some forty villages. In his 
map he gives to the Dutch their encroachment of eight or 
ten leagues, extending to Cape Nassau, some thirty leagues 
from the mouth of the Orinoco, the point of the modern 
British claims. In 1820-23 William Sabon, geographer 
to the King and to the Prince of Wales, published a map, 
in which he gives the same boundaries to the British pos- 
sessions as De Pons gave to the Dutch, very clear proof 
that at the time of the treaty of 1814, and for several 
years after, England, so far as her geographers knew, made 
no claim whatever to any land west of Cape Nassau. 
Maps, of course, abound. There are many of the eight- 
eenth century and earlier, made for the most part by men 
who had never left their own country, which give every 
sort of boundary. These are of value only as showing 
the opinion of the map-maker. The importance of the De 
Pons map is that it was made by a man who had thoroughly 
explored the country, and that it was accepted as authori- 
tative by English geographers as late as 1823. 

Having determined at some length and with reasonable 
precision the western limitations of Dutch Guiana, to 
which, and to which only, England succeeded in 1814, it 
now becomes pertinent and proper to inquire how far 
England has respected or rather ignored these boundaries, 
and to trace step by step her aggressions upon the soil of 
her weaker neighbor. For many years the question of 
boundary between Venezuela and England was held in 
abeyance. Venezuela for a long time was a part of the 
old Columbian Confederation, and too busy with her own 



216 THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 

internal problems to pay much heed to the more remote 
question of the boundary of her eastern frontier. Perhaps 
the earliest, as it certainly is one of the most significant, 
incidents of this whole controversy occurred in 1836. On 
the 26th of May of that year Sir Robert Ker Porter, the 
then British minister at Caracas, requested the Venezuelan 
government in an official note to place lighthouses and 
other marks at Point Barima, at the mouth of the Orinoco 
River, as an aid to navigation. This voluntary act of Sir 
Robert Ker Porter was a most complete admission of 
Venezuela's sovereignty over the Orinoco. The modern 
British claim that the Dutch had occupied Point Barima 
long before the treaty of Munster probably did not occur 
to Sir Robert. Indeed, it seems altogether likely that he 
only had in mind the treaty of Aranjuez of 1791, already 
alluded to, in which the Dutch themselves distinctly re- 
cognize " the Spanish establislunents on the Orinoco." 
This dispatch was a part of the archives of the British 
legation at Caracas for half a century, and it was not 
until 1887 that the then British minister, on being con- 
fronted with it, took the pains to disavow this act of his 
predecessor, on the ground that it was without the " know- 
ledge or authority of the British Government." Indeed, 
about the time that Sir Robert dispatched his now fa- 
mous note, there are various other acts which go to show 
that the agents of the British Government were unaccount- 
ably ignorant of what have since come to be " undoubted 
British rights" in Guiana. 

In the latter part of the same year (1836) the British 
governor of Demerara, in a note printed among the Parlia- 
mentary papers, made the statement that the Pomaron 
River, west of the Essequibo and east of the Moroco, could 
be taken as the limit of the English colony. Further, in 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 217 

September or October of 1840, au Englishman was ar- 
rested and tried for having killed an Indian. His coun- 
sel succeeded in showing that the crime had taken place 
in the territory of the Moroco, whereupon the British tri- 
bunal promptly acquitted him on the ground that it had 
no jurisdiction, the act having been committed in a foreign 
territory. Thus we see that in 1840 a British court in 
Dcmerara had judicial cognizance of the fact that the 
territory of the Moroco was Venezuelan territory and out- 
side British jurisdiction. The governor of Guiana in- 
formed his government of these facts, in a dispatch dated 
23d of August, 1841. It is not known that the British 
Government, either then or since, in any way disavowed 
these acts of its accredited ajrents. 

Meanwhile the reports of the discovery of rich gold 
fields in the territory of the Yuruari reached London, and 
the English ministry soon began to display a lively con- 
cern in the boundary question. In 1841, Mr. (afterwards 
Sir) Robert Schomburgk, who was sent out first under 
the auspices of the Royal Geographical Society to explore 
the country in 1834, surveyed and laid out a line of de- 
marcation. It does not appear that Venezuela was invited 
to cooperate in a work which affected her interests so 
vitally. The British consul, it is true, informed Vene- 
zuela of Schomburgk's mission, but the vigorous protest 
of the latter government went unheeded and ignored. 
Schomburgk continued his survey, and staked out the 
famous " Schomburgk line." This survey included the 
whole seaboard between the Essequibo and the Amacuro 
(which finds its outlet at the mouth of the Orinoco) and 
a vast section in the interior. One of its conspicuous fea- 
tures was the erection of a sentry box and the planting of 
a British flag at Point Barima at the mouth of the Orinoco. 



218 THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 

The Venezuelans, not without a touch of humor, have 
uniformly contented themselves in all of their published 
maps by referring to this line as " capricious," and Schom- 
burgk in his original maj) and report speaks of his line 
as the British claim, not boundary. It is difficult to re- 
sist the conclusion that the British Government of that 
period took much the same view; for Lord Aberdeen, 
then prime minister, in reply to the urgent remonstrance 
of the Venezuelan minister at London, said, on the 11th 
of December, 1841, that the survey had been undertaken 
merely as a " preliminary step " to further discussion be- 
tween the two governments, and not, as the Venezuelan 
Government seemed to fear, " with the intention of indi- 
cating dominion or empire on the part of Great Britain." 
He added that he was glad to learn that Venezuela had 
been able to ascertain that Point Barima had not been 
occupied by the British authorities. A few weeks later, 
on the 31st of January, 1842, Lord Aberdeen gave force 
and effect to this disclaimer by ordering the removal of 
all the marks set up by Schomburgk. 

I have here certain letters which I ask leave to print 
with my remarks. I will not weary the Senate by read- 
ing them. The first one expresses the views of Lord 
Palmerston in 1840. Lord Palmerston therein suggests, 
for the consideration of Lord John Russell, that a map of 
British Guiana should be made out according to the bound- 
aries described by Mr. Schomburgk; that the said map 
should be accompanied by a memoir, describing in detail 
the natural features which define and constitute the bound- 
aries in question. 

The same idea is very apparent in Schomburgk's re- 
port ; in fact, he mentions in his memoir that he laid 
the line according to the natural boundaries of the terri- 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 219 

tory as he conceived them. He was a botanist and an ex- 
plorer. 

The letter referred to is as follows : — 

Foreign Office, March 18, 1840. 

Sir, — I am directed by Viscount Palraerston to acknowledge 
the receipt of your letter of the 6th instant, inclosing copies and 
extracts of dispatches and their inclosures from Mr. Light, 
governor of British Guiana, relative to the expediency of an ar- 
rangement being made with the Brazilian, Venezuelan, and the 
Netherlands Governments by which the boundaries of British 
Guiana may be accurately defined. 

With reference to that part of your letter in which you state 
that Lord John Russell considers it to be important that the bound- 
aries of British Guiana should be ascertained and agreed upon, 
if possible, and that Mr. Schomburgk's researches in those parts 
have qualified him in a peculiar manner to be of use, should the 
service of any person acquainted with the geography of British 
Guiana be required for fixing the boundaries of the British ter- 
ritory, I am to state to you that the course of proceeding which 
Lord Palmerston would suggest for the consideration of Lord 
John Russell is that " a map of British Guiana should be made 
out according to the boundaries described by Mr. Schomburgk ; 
that the said map should be accompanied by a memoir, describ- 
ing in detail the natural features which define and constitute the 
boundaries in question, and that copies of that map and memoir 
should be delivered to the Governments of Venezuela, of Brazil, 
and of the Netherlands as a statement of the British claims ; 
that in the meanwhile British commissioners should be sent to 
erect landmarks on the ground, in order to mark out by perma- 
nent erections the line of boundary so claimed by Great Britain." 
It would then rest with each of the three governments above 
mentioned to make any objection which they might have to bring 
forward against these boundaries, and to state the reasons upon 
which such objection might be founded, and Her Majesty's 



220 THE MONROE DOCTRINE, 

Govei'nment would tlien give such answers thereto as might 

appear proper and just. 

Lord Palmerston further considers that it would he expedient 

that the Brazilians should be required to withdraw from Pirara, 

and that the officer in command should be informed that any 

claim which Brazil may imagine itself to have to that village 

should be stated by the Brazilian Government to that of Great 

Britain, in order that it may be discussed and settled between 

the two governments. 

I have, etc., 

Leveson. 
James Stephen, Esq. 

I have also a letter from Lord Aberdeen, dated the 31st 
of January, 1842, in which he speaks of removing the 
marks which had been put up, and explains that he is very 
glad to meet the wishes of the Venezuelan Government. 

The letter referred to is as follows : — 

Foreign Office, January 31, 1842. 

The undersigned, Her Majesty's principal secretary of state 
for foreign affairs, has the honor to acknowledge the receipt of 
the note addressed to him on the 10th instant by Mr. Fortique, 
plenipotentiary of the Republic of Venezuela, representing the 
alarm and excitement which have been created in Venezuela on 
account of the marks fixed by Mr. Schomburgk at different 
points of his survey near the mouth of the Orinoco, and renew- 
ing his request that Her Majesty's Government will order the 
removal of these marks. 

The undersigned begs to inform Mr. Fortique in reply that, 
in order to meet the wishes of the Government of Venezuela, 
Her Majesty's Government will send instructions to the gover- 
nor of British Guiana directing him to remove the posts which 
have been placed by Mr. Schomburgk near the Orinoco. 

But the undersigned feels it his duty distinctly to declare to 
Mr. Fortique that, although in order to put an end to the mis- 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 221 

apprehension which appears to prevail in Venezuela with regard 
to the ohject of Mr. Schomburgk's survey the undersigned lias 
consented to comply with the renewed representations of Mr. 
Fortique upon this affair, Her Majesty's Government must not 
be understood to abandon any portion of the rights of Great 
Britain over the territory which was formerly had by the Dutch 
in Guiana. 

The undersigned begs to renew to Mr. Fortique the assurance 
of his high consideration. 

Aberdeen". 

I have also another letter of Lord Aberdeen, written 
on March 30, 1844, in which he discusses first the British 
claim to all the territory as far as the Orinoco, but closes 
by saying that they will yield to Venezuela from the line 
of the Orinoco practically to the Pomaron. He says : — 

Being convinced that the most important objects for the in- 
terest of Venezuela is the exclusive possession of the Orinoco, 
Her Majesty's Government is ready to yield to the Republic of 
Venezuela a portion of the coast sufficient to insure her the free 
control of the mouth of this her principal river and prevent its 
being under the control of any foreign power. 

The letter referred to is as follows : — 

[Extract from Lord Aberdeen's reply to Dr. Fortique.] 

Foreign Office, March 30, 1844. 

In 1674 the West India Company, formed in 1627, was dis- 
solved, but a new company was formed and authorized, restrict- 
ing their rights to trade with certain parts of Africa, the Island 
of Curasao, and the colonies of the Essequibo, and Boneverone 
(Pumaron), the latter extending, as above stated, as far as the 
Orinoco. 

Pursuing the examination of the authorities, which in more 
modern times confirm these datas, it will be found that in the 



222 THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 

"History of South America" by Bolt, published about the middle 
of the last century, Dutch Guiana is described as extending 
from the mouth of the Orinoco at 9° as far as the Marawaina 
to 6° 20' latitude north ; that in a map of said coast published in 
1783 by Faden, the Orinoco River is established as the western 
limit of the Dutch, according to their pretensions ; and that in a 
more recent chart published by Jeifery's in 1798, the Barima 
River is described as being the division between the Dutch and 
Spanish lands. The undersigned must declare that these au- 
thorities cannot be rejected, as being English, and therefore, 
having an interest in this question because, although at the date 
of the last cited chart the Dutch colony was under the protec- 
tion of Great Britain, it was restored to the Batavian Republic 
in 1802, and there is no reason to doubt the testimony of Faden 
and Bolt, or to accuse them of partiality. 

It is doubtful whether the same could be said of La Conda- 
mine, Bellin, and other French writers, whose government al- 
ways showed itself to be jealous of the progress of the Dutch 
in the neighborhood of the settlement of Cayenne. 

But, in reality, no doubt can exist that the mouth of the 
Orinoco was not only claimed by the Dutch as the western 
limit of their possessions, but also that from the very beginning 
they effected its military occupation and retained possession of 
it. Hartsinck says, " The first rivers found in Dutch Guiana 
coming from the Orinoco are the Barima, about one mile in 
width, where in olden times we had a fort." There exist docu- 
ments of the West India Company showing that directors 
recommended to the commander of Pumaron to keep the Ba- 
rima fort in good condition. Colonel Moody found the ruins of 
these fortifications when, in 1807, the English occupied the 
coast, and were preparing to send some forces to Angostura to 
destroy buccaneers that were pillaging the coast of Dutch 
Guiana, and also to fortify that place again. Mr. Schomburgk, 
when in the discharge of a commission, found the remains of 
the fort and also of cultivation in the neighboring territory. 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 223 

The undersigned does not deem further evidence necessary 
to show how erroneous are the assertions of Senor Fortique 
when he states that the Essequibo has been considered as a 
dividing line between the two countries, and that territory lying 
between that river and the Orinoco has been considered by tlie 
world as belonging exclusively to Spain. These statements 
make the undersigned feel justified in doubting whether Seiior 
Fortique would be supported by his own countrymen in his 
views, taking into consideration that in the maps of the prov- 
inces of Venezuela published four years ago by an officer of the 
Republic the extreme limits of the Venezuelan eastern claims is 
the Moroco River, and in truth, to judge from the exaggerated 
pretensions found in his work on other points, the author is not 
inclined to sin on the side of generosity with respect to the 
neighboring Bi'itish colony. 

Were the undersigned inclined to act on the spirit of Senor 
Fortique's communication, it is evident, by what he has said, 
that he ought to claim on behalf of Great Britain, as the right- 
ful successor of Holland, all the coast from the Orinoco to the 
Essequibo ; and such claim, aside from all questions of right, 
would certainly be much less injurious to Venezuela than the 
pretensions of Senor Fortique as to England, as Venezuela has 
no settlements on the disputed territory, and the admission or 
acknowledgment of the Essequibo as the limit of the Republic 
would, of course, mean that Great Britain should deliver about 
one half of the colony of Demerara, including Point Cartabo 
and the Island of Tkykoveral, where the Dutch founded their 
first settlement on the Majarini, the mission of Barlika Grove, 
and many settlements now existing on the Arabisi coast as far 
as fifty miles from the capital. 

But the undersigned believes that the negotiations would not 
be free from difficulties if the claims that cannot be sustained 
are presented, and shall not, therefore, follow Senor Fortique's 
example; but state here the concessions that Great Britain is 
disposed to make of her rights, prompted by a friendly consid- 



224 THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 

eration for Venezuek, and by her desire to avoid all cause of 
serious controversies between the two countries. 

" Being convinced that the most important object for the 
interest of Venezuela is the exclusive possession of the Orinoco, 
Her Majesty's Government is ready to yield to the Republic of 
Venezuela a portion of the coast sufficient to insure her the free 
control of the mouth of this her principal river and prevent its 
being under the control of any foreign power," With this end 
*" in view, and being persuaded that a concession of tlie greatest 
importance has been made to Venezuela, Her Majesty's Gov- 
ernment is disposed to lay aside its rights upon the Amacuro as 
the western limit of the British territory, and to consider the 
mouth of the Guiama River as the boundary of Her Majesty's 
possessions on the coast side. Moreover, Her Majesty's Gov- 
ernment will consent that the boundary in the interior be fixed by 
a line from the mouth of the Moroco, the point where the rivers 
Barama and Guiama meet, as far as the Aunama, whose upward 
course will be followed until the stream approaches the point 
nearest the Acarabisi ; then following the downward course of 
the Acarabisi as far as its confluence with the Cuyuni, it will 
piarsue the upward course of the latter as far as the highlands 
contiguous to the Boraima Mountains, where its waters are di- 
vided between the Essequibo and the river Branco. 

Great Britain is then disposed to cede to Venezuela all the 
territory lying between the above-mentioned line and the Ama- 
curo River and the chain of mountains where it has its head, 
upon condition that the Government of Venezuela shall engage 
itself not to alienate any portion of said territory to any foreign 
power, and also upon condition that the tribe of Indians now 
living in said territory shall be protected against all ill-treatment 
and oppression. 

The undersigned has the honor to renew to Senor Fortique 
the assurance of the highest consideration. 

Aberdeen. 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 225 

Mr. President, we are told now that Great Britain will 
not consider any question arising to the east of the Schom- 
burgk line, which terminates at Point Barima at the 
mouth of the Orinoco. At that time Lord Aberdeen, as 
may be seen in his letter, considered the Orinoco of vital 
importance to Venezuela. He was ready to withdraw all 
their claims, whether they were large or small, to the land 
in that neighborhood and west of the Moroco practically, 
in order that Venezuela might control that great stream. 

Mr. Morgan. Mr. President — 

The Vice-President. Does the Senator from Massa- 
chusetts yield to the Senator from Alabama ? 

Mr. Lodge. Certainly. 

Mr. Morgan. I desire to ask the Senator from Mas- 
sachusetts whether he is quite sure that the first explora- 
tion made by Schomburgk was under the auspices of the 
Geographical Society, or whether he did not go out from 
the United States, where he was occupying the position 
of clerk in a tobacco store in New York, — being a botanist 
and otherwise interested in natural objects, — upon a pri- 
vate exploration. After he made the exploration he made 
his report to the Geographical Society, whereupon they 
gave him authority to make it more definite, and after 
that the Government of Great Britain took up the subject. 

Mr. Lodge. I will say to the Senator from Alabama 
that Schomburgk, as he states, was in business in this 
country, a clerk in a shop. He went to an island, some 
West Indian island or an island in the neighborhood of 
South America, of which he made a survey and a map. 
He sent it to the Geographical Society at London. It 
was so very well done that the society invited him to make 
explorations on the mainland. In 1834 he went to Gui- 
ana under their auspices. It is so stated in the Parlia- 



226 THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 

mentary paper which prints extracts from his letters. He 
went there in 1834 and explored Guiana, and made a re- 
port and wrote a memoir. In that expedition he practi- 
cally laid down the line as he thought it ought to be. 
Then the British Government, hearing of this memoir, 
ordered those portions of it printed which related to the 
boundary, and they sent him out officially in 1840 to mark 
out the boundary, which I think it is apparent he had 
really already surveyed. The Parliamentary paper con- 
taining the report or the extracts from his memoir (it is a 
very rare one ; I have never seen more than one copy of it) 
states in a note that those are extracts from his letters 
and memoir, and in those he constantly refers to the nat- 
ural boundaries. He devotes most of his space to dis- 
cussing the boundary of Brazil on the south, where the 
serious trouble then was. He devotes very little space, 
comparatively speaking, to the question of the Venezuelan 
boundary. He then went out in 1840, as I have said, and 
officially ran the line which bears his name. He returned 
to London in 1844, when he was knighted for his ser- 
vices, and, I believe, subsequently came to South America 
as a British consul. 

Mr. Davis. Did he only lay down one line ? 

Mr. Lodge. I think so, although I am not sure. 
There is what is called an extension of the Schomburgk 
line, but I think Schomburgk himself laid only one line, 
although he may have changed his first boundary. 

A few weeks later, the marks of which I have spoken 
were removed. In other words, the British Government 
of that day disavowed the Schomburgk line, within which 
we are now told Great Britain cannot assent to arbitra- 
tion. It required half a century, however, to bring into 
clearer relief just what really was intended in referring to 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 227 

the Schomburgk line as a mere " preliminary step " to fu- 
ture negotiations. Lord Aberdeen abandoned the Schom- 
burgk line in 1841. In 1890 Lord Salisbury, then Prime 
Minister, repudiated the act of his predecessor, Lord 
Aberdeen. This is what he said in a note on the 10th 
of February to the Venezuelan minister of foreign 
affairs : — 

Her Majesty's Government cannot accept as satisfactory any 
arrangement not admitting as English property the territory in- 
cluded within the Hne laid down by Sir R. Schomburgk. 

We can see in this way how that line, from being the 
mere suggestion of an explorer, based on natural features, 
has now become an immutable right about which discus- 
sion is out of the question. 

Popular feeling in Venezuela had been greatly excited 
by the events connected with the Schomburgk incident. 
It was in response to repeated instructions from Caracas 
that the Venezuelan minister in London finally succeeded 
in opening negotiations. The attempt was abortive in 
any immediate results. The Venezuelan Government pro- 
posed the Essequibo as a frontier, and based its argument 
upon the ancient maps and treaties. In response Lord 
Aberdeen proposed the Moroco. This proposition would 
probably have been accepted as a compromise had it not 
been accomjDanied by some offensive and humiliating con- 
ditions which forced Venezuela to reject it. Instructions, 
however, were issued to Senor Fortique, the Venezuelan 
minister, to suggest suitable modifications ; but his sudden 
death virtually suspended further negotiation for a period 
of thirty years. 

Occasional notes were, however, interchanged, and of 
these quite the most significant was one addressed by 



228 THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 

Belfard Hinton Wilson, the British charge d'affaires at 
Caracas, on November 18, 1850, to the Venezuelan minister 
of foreign affairs. Mr. Wilson, it appears, had become 
somewhat alarmed " in relation to the existence of a pro- 
paganda to mislead and excite public opinion concerning 
the boundary question." He therefore took this opportu- 
nity of saying (I quote from his published letter) : — 

The Venezuelan Government, in justice to Great Britain, can- 
not mistrust for a moment the sincerity of the formal declaration 
which is now made in the name and by the express order of Her 
Majesty's Government, that Great Britain has no intention to 
occupy or encroach upon the territory in dispute. 

The territory in dispute lies between the Orinoco and 
the Essequibo ; most of it between the Schomburgk line 
and the Essequibo. It was the territory in dispute, ac- 
cording to the authentic utterance of Her Majesty's Gov- 
ernment in 1850, and now it is territory which must not 
even be discussed. A similar assurance from Venezuela 
was asked for and proraj^tly given. This was, of course, 
pending the settlement of the boundary question. 

It was not until 1876 that negotiations were again 
opened, the initiative being taken, as usual, by Venezuela. 
Dr. Jose Maria Rojas was sent to London as minister 
resident, with explicit instructions to terminate the dis- 
pute, if possible, in a way honorable to Venezuela. Inti- 
mation was conveyed to the British foreign office, in 
accordance with the spirit of these instructions, that a line 
of compromise rather than one of strict right would be 
considered, so anxious was Venezuela to bring about a 
final settlement. After several years of unremitting en- 
deavor. Dr. Rojas was at length rewarded by receiving 
from Lord Salisbury, on the 10th of January, 1880, a 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 22D 

statement " of the claim of Her Majesty's Government by 
virtue of ancient treaties with the native tribes." This- 
revised line of demarcation was found to include not only 
the old Schomburgk line but a vast and valuable tract 
beyond it. Lord Salisbury promised, in conclusion, to 
consider in the "most friendly spirit" any proposition 
which the Government of Venezuela might see fit to make 
for the establishment of a limit satisfactory to both nations. 
The reference to ancient treaties with the native Indian 
tribes was justly regarded by Venezuela as being involved 
in a good deal of obscurity. The claim, which was now 
set up for the first time, was certainly a novel one. The 
particular treaties and the particular tribes referred to 
were known to Great Britain alone. Likewise the manner 
in which these tribes came to be recognized as free and 
independent, possessed of the attributes of sovereignty, 
was another diplomatic secret, which was safely guarded 
within the precincts of the British foreign office. As a 
matter of fact, the Indians had been for centuries subjects 
of Spain and Holland, and had long since lost all right 
to make a treaty with any one. 

In accordance with Lord Salisbury's suggestion that 
Venezuela submit some proposition " for the establish- 
ment of a limit satisfactory to both nations," Dr. Rojas 
proposed the Moroco, Lord Aberdeen's old divisional line ; 
but shortly afterwards the Beaconsfield ministry fell and 
Lord Granville became minister of foreign affairs. In a 
note dated September 15, 1881, Lord Granville declined 
to accept the Moroco as a boundary, but suggested a line 
which should begin at a place on the seacoast at a longi- 
tude of twenty-nine miles to the east of the right shore of 
the river Barima. This proposition was in turn rejected 
by Venezuela. A few years later a final adjustment of all 



230 THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 

difficulties between the two counti-ies seemed at length to 
be in sight. The British Government consented to unite 
the boundary question with the question of additional duty 
on merchandise coming from the Antilles and certain in- 
demnity demands made by British citizens against Vene- 
zuela. It was proposed to pave the way to an adjustment 
of all issues and controversies by one treaty. " The pro- 
posal to settle by arbitration questions which may arise be- 
tween the countries," wrote Lord Granville to General Guz- 
man Blanco, on the 15th of April, 1885, " meets with the 
entire concurrence of Her Majesty's Government." An 
actual convention was drawn up, but before it could be 
signed the ministry changed. Lord Salisbury, who re- 
sumed the foreign portfolio, expressly repudiated the 
arbitration agreement made by his pi-edecessor, and the 
negotiations abruptly ended. According to Lord Salisbury, 
to refer all disputes and controversies to arbitration 
" would be without precedent in the treaties made by Great 
Britain." The next attempt to reopen the question came 
in the following year, when the Venezuela legation re- 
newed its efforts to secure some satisfactory compromise, 
and suggested arbitration as the means. Lord Rosebery, 
in July, 1886, replied by proposing a frontier which would 
include the river Guiama in British Guiana. Coui)led 
to this memorandum was a demand for the free navigation 
of the Orinoco, which made it impossible. 

Meantime the British aggressions in the disputed zone, 
the region which Great Britain had solemnly promised not 
to occupy while in dispute, began to be more and more 
aggravated. Beginning with October, 1884, various marks 
of British sovereignty were repeatedly set up or posted. 
Fortifications were thrown up at Barima Point. The 
Venezuelan commissary at the mouth of the Amacuro was 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 231 

arrested and tried for the alleged ill-treatment of a Portu- 
guese subject. Venezuela protested that the status quo 
of 1850, not to occupy the territory in dispute, was being 
flagrantly violated. No heed was paid to this remon- 
strance. There was under such circumstances but one 
honorable course for Venezuela to pursue. She broke off 
diplomatic relations with Great Britain on the 20th of 
February, 1887. Even this, however, did not terminate 
the efforts of Venezuela to arrive at some understandine: 
with her powerful adversary. She has since made several 
futile endeavors to refer the whole question to friendly 
arbitration. The last one was made as late as the spring 
of 1893, by Dr. Michelena, the confidential agent of 
Venezuela at London. It went the way of all the others. 
Lord Rosebery, in 1893, was plainly convinced that his 
demands of 1886 were too moderate; he reinforced them 
by conditions more objectionable than ever. In 1850 
Great Britain herself suggested non-intervention in the 
disputed belt ; in 1893 it was quite impossible for Eng- 
land to consent to arbitrate the greater part of this identi- 
cal territory which had for so many years constituted " an 
integral portion of British Guiana." 

Mr. Hill. Will the Senator from Massachusetts 
allow me for just a moment ? 

Mr. Lodge. Certainly. 

Mr. Hill. The Senator from Massachusetts seems to 
have given the subject great consideration, and I desire 
to ask him if he can inform the Senate whether Venezuela 
has ever at any time refused to submit the matter to 
arbitration. 

Mr. Lodge. Never. 

Mr. Hill. I asked the question because of a published 
interview said to have been given out by Mr. Lincoln, in 



232 THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 

which it was stated that at one period Venezuela had 
refused arbitration. 

Mr. Lodge. I have never met with any instance in 
which she refused arbitration by itself. So far as I am 
aware, — and I think I have examined all the correspond- 
ence, — she has sought arbitration constantly. She has 
rejected some of the compromises offered by Great Britain 
in which arbitration may have been a feature, but on 
other grounds. She rejected, for example, one compro- 
mise offered by Great Britain, because Great Britain in- 
sisted upon the free navigation of the Orinoco. But I do 
not think that Venezuela has ever rejected arbitration as 
an independent proposition. On the contrary, she has 
always sought it. 

It will be observed, from the brief outline of the dispute 
which I have given, that no new rights have come to Eng- 
land or to Venezuela since 1814, that is, since the declara- 
tion of President Monroe. They have the rights of Spain 
and Holland, respectively, — nothing more and nothing 
less, — and are entitled to exactly what those inherited 
rights give them. In 1836 a British minister acknowledged 
that Point Barima belonged to Venezuela by asking the 
Venezuelan Government to erect a lighthouse there. In 
1840 a British court in Demerara declared the territory 
of the Moroco, far to the east of the Orinoco, to be Vene- 
zuelan territory. In 1841 an English explorer laid out a 
perfectly arbitrary line running from the mouth of the Ori- 
noco In a southerly direction until it reached the southern 
boundary of British Guiana. Lord Aberdeen disavowed 
this line, and proposed another starting at the river Moroco 
and going farther into the interior ; Lord Granville pro- 
posed another reaching farther to the west ; Lord Rosebery 
another inside the Schomburgk line, but coupled with the 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 233 

free navigation of the Orinoco. In 1893 he proposed a 
second line, and meantime Lord Salisbury had extended 
the British claim while he was secretary for foreign af- 
fairs. The Statesman's Year Book will show, if any one 
cares to examine it, that the British claim upon Venezuela 
advanced in one year thirty-three thousand square miles. 
Every British minister has offered a different line within 
which Great Britain would not consent to arbitrate, and 
every British minister has gone beyond his predecessor in 
making fresh claims to territory beyond the line which he 
offered and about which he would arbitrate. At first si^ht 
this seems to denote inconsistency on the part of the Brit- 
ish Government, but in reality their course has been just 
the reverse. There is apparently just as much support 
for one line as another when they pass beyond the valley 
of the Essequibo. From Schomburgk down, every line 
was entirely arbitrary, and the constantly growing claims 
beyond the various lines offered was in entire keeping 
with the policy of the British Government. Their object 
was to get as much new territory as they could if the 
matter ever came to a settlement, which they have used 
every artifice to delay. 

I do not personally believe that Great Britain has a 
good claim to a foot of land beyond the Essequibo; for 
Indian treaties are altogether too flimsy to support any 
serious contention, and the claim of recent settlement is 
impossible, as that would entitle England to any vacant 
land anywhere in North or South America on which a 
British subject had settled. 

Mr. Chandler. May I ask the Senator from Massa- 
chusetts whether in his researches he has discovered 
any trace of the Indian treaties alluded to by Lord Salis- 
bury? 



234 THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 

Mr. Lodge. I have not. They must be concealed in 
the British case. 

But it is not my purpose to pass upon the merits of 
either the British or the Venezuelan claim. All I have 
desired to show, and all that it is necessary to show, is 
that there is a dispute as to the ownership of the terri- 
tory lying west of the Essequibo, and that neither Eng- 
land nor Venezuela holds an uncontested title to any por- 
tion of it. That disputed territory either belonged to 
Holland or it did not. If it did, England ought to have 
it, and there would not be the slightest disposition on the 
part of the United States to interfere with her possession 
of it. If it did not, it belongs to Venezuela, and Vene- 
zuela ought to have it. The question is one for the arbitra- 
tion of an impartial tribunal, and by the decision of such 
a tribunal the United States would cheerfully abide. But 
if England, with no authority but a disputed claim, seizes 
territory and declines arbitration upon it, her action does 
not differ from seizing and holding new territory in the 
Americas by the right of conquest. The boundary dispute 
does not touch the essence of the question, which is the 
acquisition of new territory in this hemisphere by a Euro- 
pean power. Such pretexts can always be found. If 
England can seize territory under a claim which has 
grown larger with each succeeding year, there is nothing 
to prevent her taking indefinite regions in South America. 
If England can do it, and is allowed to do it, by the United 
States, every other European power can do the same, and 
they will not be slow to follow England's example. We 
have seen them parcel out Africa, and if we do not inter- 
pose now in this case the fate of large portions of South 
America will be the same. We shall have formidable 
rivals all about us; we shall be in constant danger of 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 235 

war ; and we shall be forced to become a military power 
with great armies and navies. 

The seizure of this South American territory by Eng- 
land is an absolute violation of the Monroe Doctrine. It 
is so in the most literal sense, because Mr. Monroe de- 
clared that the Americas were no longer subject to Euro- 
pean colonization, and there is no difference in principle 
between settling a new colony, and under pretext of a 
boundary dispute extending indefinitely and unlawfully 
and by force the bounds of an old colony. It also vio- 
lates the doctrine, because it oppresses an American state, 
against which Mr. Monroe specifically declared. But the 
principle stands on broader grounds than these. I have 
heard it said that no one knows what the Monroe Doc- 
trine is. Mr. President, it is as simple in principle as the V, 
Declaration of Independence, to which Jefferson compared j 
it. It is not a doctrine of international law, and the at- 
tempt to discuss it or to oppose it on that ground is a 
waste of words. Like the independence of this country, it 
is a question of fact and not of law. The independence 
of this coimtry is unquestioned, because, having declared 
it, we have compelled the world to recognize it. In the :, 
same way we have always acted on the declai'ation of Mr. I 
Monroe as the guiding principle of our foreign policy. ! 
We shall now, I hope, declare it again, with the formal ' 
sanction of Congress representing the people of the ||l 
United States. It is idle to argue either for or against it 
as a matter of international law, for it requires no such I 
support. We stand by the Monroe Doctrine for the same 
reason that England upholds Afghanistan, and takes the 
Shan States from China, because it is essential to our 
safety and our defense. The Monroe Doctrine rests pri- 
marily on the great law of self-preservation. 'J 



236 THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 

We declare tlie Monroe Doctrine to be a principle 
which we believe essential to the honor, the safety, the 
interests of the United States. We declare it as a state- 
ment of fact, and we must have it recognized as our inde- 
pendence and national existence are recognized by all the 
world. It must be recognized, because we sustain and 
support it ; and we can no more permit it to be a matter 
of discussion with other nations than we can afford to 
discuss with them our national welfare or our forms of 
government. It embodies for us the same principle as 
the balance of power so jealously maintained by the na- 
tions of Europe. They will not allow that to be disturbed, 
and we hold to our balance of power with equal tenacity. 

The Moni'oe Doctrine interferes in no wise with the 
rights which the principles of international law give to all 
nations. It does not touch the question of reparation for 
injuries inflicted upon the subjects of any European power 
by any of the Central or South American states. We 
cherish that right jealously ourselves ; we do not deny it 
to others. If the subjects of any European power suffer 
wrong at the hands of any of the governments of South 
or Central America, that power is entitled to demand the 
fullest satisfaction and redress. But, Mr. President, the 
question of reparation must not be mixed up with the ac- 
quisition of territory. Lord Salisbury, with the ingenuity 
for which he is distinguished, has made a claim for re- 
paration upon Venezuela on account of the arrest by the 
Venezuelan authorities of certain British subjects. He 
turns to us and to the rest of the world with the inquiry 
as to whether the Monroe Doctrine is to interfere with 
the right of every power to protect its citizens in South 
America. To such a question there can be but one answer, 
and Lord Salisbury is assured beforehand of the sympathy 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 237 

of all nations on that point. But the whole case has 
not been stated in that question. Those British subjects 
were arrested on the disputed territory, on the land which 
the British Government, by its accredited representative, 
solemnly pledged itself not to occupy until the question 
of ownership was finally settled. If that territory belongs 
to England, those men were wrongfully arrested. If it 
belongs to Venezuela, they wei'e rightfully ari-ested. If 
Venezuela pays now the indemnity fixed and demanded 
by England, and admits in terms that she does so because 
these men, being on British territory, were wrongfully 
arrested, she weakens her whole case. The Monroe Doc- 
trine does not interfere with any nation seeking reparation 
for injuries to its subjects, but it does interfere if a demand 
for reparation is to be made the pretext for the seizure 
of territory by a European power on the American con- 
tinent. 

The Monroe Doctrine, as I have said, is very simple. 
It is merely the declaration that no foreign power must 
establish a new government, acquire new territory by 
purchase or force or by any method whatever, or seek to 
control existing governments in the Americas. That is 
the principle which Mr. Monroe declared. If there is 
any dispute as to the meaning of his language, it is not 
needful to dwell upon it. That is what the American 
people believed he meant. That is the way American 
statesmen have interpreted it; and that there may be no 
future misunderstanding, that is what we should declare 
it to be, and to have always been, by this resolution. 

Mr. President, we have neglected too long our foreign 
policy, and the great interests of the United States which 
lie beyond her borders. We have permitted this English 
advance upon Venezuelan territory to go unchecked for 



V 



238 THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 

years. The time lias now come to end this state of things. 
We want this matter settled, and settled by arbitration ; 
because if it is settled otherwise it is a blow to a principle 
vital to the welfare and the dignity of the United States. 
But, Mr. President, there is more in it than this. If we 
neglect our foreign affairs, England does not neglect hers. 
At the last session of Congress I called the attention of 
the Senate and of the country to tbe manner in which 
England had absorbed the islands of the Pacific, and to 
the necessity of our controlling the Hawaiian Islands, a 
necessity which becomes more pressing with each succeed- 
ing day. I ask you now to look at the Caribbean Sea. 
I ask you to note the strong naval station which England 
has established at Santa Lucia. Follow a line thence to 
the westward, and you find Trinidad, the development of 
which has been strongly pushed of late years, then Jamaica, 
and finally British Honduras. That line faces the South 
American coast. This territory claimed from Venezuela 
is being pushed steadily to the westward along that coast, 
and the point at which it aims is the control of the mouths 
of the Orinoco, one of the great river systems of South 
America. The purpose of all these movements is written 
plainly on the map. If successful they will give Great 
Britain control of the Orinoco and of the Spanish Main, 
and will make the Caribbean Sea little better than a 
British lake. 

We are a great nation, Mr. President, and we have a 
great nation's duties and responsibilities. The path which 
we should follow lies clear before us. We must be the 
leaders in the Western Hemisphere. We must protect 
our coasts and hold the commerce of that hemisphere. 
We do not meddle with the affairs of Europe. Neither 
Great Britain nor Europe must be permitted to interfere 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 239 

with our affairs or gain new territory here. We seek no 
quarrels with any nation. We have not been the aggres- 
sors in any of the difficulties which are now lowering upon 
the horizon. But, Mr. President, I think there is no 
mistaking the temper of the American people. For thirty 
years they have been absorbed in healing the ravages of 
civil war and in completing the conquest of the great 
continent which was our inheritance. That work is done. 
The American people have begun to turn their eyes toward 
those interests of the United States which lie beyond our 
borders and yet so near our doors. They see those inter- 
ests have been neglected. They see another nation hem- 
ming them in with fortifications and encroaching upon 
regions which must remain what they have always been — 
American. They are resolved that there shall be an end 
to these encroachments. They are resolved that the 
United States shall not sink in the scale of nations; that 
it shall not be menaced even by that nation to whom 
we are united by the bonds of blood and speech; but 
that it shall fulfill abroad, as at home, the great destiny 
to which it has been called. The American people, in 
my judgment, believe in and cherish the principles of 
the Monroe Doctrine, and will not suffer them to be in- 
fringed. 

I do not believe, Mr. President, that the people of Eng- 
land have the least desire to engage in hostilities with the 
United States, any more than we seek or desire hostilities 
with them. Nor do I think that they take any serious 
interest in this disputed Venezuelan territory, or realize 
even now that the question involves for us a principle 
which we consider vital to our safety and our welfare. 
We have no desire to interfere with any rightful posses- 
sion of Great Britain in South America; but we cannot 



240 THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 

allow her to set up doubtful claims to American territory, 
and then seize and hold that territory by force. If she 
can do it successfully in Venezuela, she can do it in Mex- 
ico or Cuba ; if she can do it, other nations can also. We 
do not ask her to give up her rightful territory or retreat 
an inch. All we ask is that she shall submit this dis- 
puted boundary to the arbitration of an impartial tribunal. 
We have nothing to gain ourselves by the decision of that 
tribunal, but in the reference to arbitration there is in- 
volved a principle which we regard as vital. We cannot 
believe that any English ministry seriously intends to 
force hostilities on the United States, and yet their recent 
policy is, to say the least, unfortunate. We have seen 
British forces at Corinto. We know the attitude the 
English Government assumes in Venezuela. They are 
attempting to take land on the Alaskan boundary. They 
have just denounced the modus vivendi, and reopened in 
that way the perilous dispute of the northeastern fisher- 
ies. It is not by accident that these events have all oc- 
curred or all come to an acute stage within the past year. 
They are not due to us, for we have committed no aggres- 
sion upon anybody. Of all these difficulties which are 
upon us, the most immediate is that involved in the dis- 
pute with Venezuela. They tell us that this territory is 
remote and worthless. It is remote, perhaps, but it is not 
worthless; for if it had been, the Venezuelan possession of 
it would be undisturbed. But it matters not whether it 
is worthless or valuable. The tea tax was trivial, but our 
forefathers refused to pay it because it involved a great 
principle, and the attempt to collect it cost Great Britain 
her North American colonies. The American people be- 
lieve to-day just as firmly in the principle of the JNIonroe 
Doctrine. They deem it essential to their honor, their 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 241 

safety, and their interests as a nation, and tliey are pre- 
pared to defend it when it is assailed. 

Mr. President, who is responsible for the unhappily 
strained relations between England and the United States ? 
As I have pointed out, we have not been the aggressors 
on any of the points now in dispute, whether in Alaska 
or Venezuela. What, then, has strained our relations ? 
Is it not the peremptory refusal to arbitrate this question 
of boundary ? Who gave that refusal ? Great Britain. 
We have appointed a commission, not to arbitrate between 
Great Britain and Venezviela, but to inform us, after care- 
ful investigation, what the true divisional line, in their 
opinion, should be. Who has drawn an arbitrary line of 
boundary and declared that they would not arbitrate to 
the east of it ? Not the United States, but Great Britain. 
Ultimatums are what strain relations, and they have come 
from Great Britain and not from us. I believe that this 
question will be peacefully settled by the good sense of 
the representatives of England and the United States; 
but I am very clear that such settlement can only be 
reached by action on the part of Congress and of the 
President, which shall be as firm as it is temperate, and 
which shall maintain the Monroe Doctrine absolutely and 
at all hazards wherever it justly applies. That doctrine is 
as important to us as the balance of power is to Europe; 
and those who maintain the latter must not attempt to 
break down the principle which guards the integrity of 
the Americas, and protects them from the interference and 
control of foreign powers. 



THE RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION. 

SPEECH IN THE SENATE, MARCH 10, 1896. 



THE RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION. 



Mr. President: This bill is intended to amend the 
existing law so as to restrict still further immigration to 
the United States. Paupers, diseased persons, convicts, 
and contract laborers are now excluded. By this bill it is 
proposed to make a new class of excluded immigrants, and 
add to those which have just been named the totally ig- 
norant. The bill is of the simplest kind. The first sec- 
tion excludes from the country all immigrants who cannot 
read and write either their own or some other laufruao-e. 
The second section merely provides a simple test for de- 
termining whether the immigrant can read or write, and 
is added to the bill so as to define the duties of the immi- 
grant inspectors, and to assure to all immigrants alike 
perfect justice and a fair test of their knowledge. 

Two questions arise in connection with this bill. The 
first is as to the merits of this particular form of restric- 
tion ; the second as to the general policy of restricting 
immigration at all. I desire to discuss briefly these two 
questions in the order in which I have stated them. The 
smaller question as to the merits of this particular bill 
comes first. The existing laws of the United States now 
exclude, as I have said, certain classes of immigrants who, 
it is universally agreed, would be most undesirable addi- 
tions to our population. These exclusions have been en- 
forced, and the results have been beneficial ; but the ex- 



246 THE RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION". 

eluded classes are extremely limited and do not by any 
means cover all or even any considerable part of the im- 
migrants whose presence here is undesirable or injurious, 
nor do they have any adequate effect in properly reducing 
the great body of immigration to this country. There 
can be no doubt that there is a very earnest desire on the 
part of the American people to restrict further, and ranch 
more extensively than has yet been done, foreign immigra- 
tion to the United States. The question before the com- 
mittee was how this could best be done ; that is, by what 
method the largest number of undesirable immigrants and 
the smallest possible number of desirable immigrants 
could be shut out. Three methods of obtaining this fur- 
ther restriction have been widely discussed of late years, 
and in various forms have been brought to the attention 
of Congress. The first was the imposition of a capitation 
tax on all immisfrants. There can be no doubt as to the 
effectiveness of this method if the tax is made suffi- 
ciently hea.vy. But although exclusion by a tax would be 
thoi'ough, it would be undiscriminating, and your commit- 
tee did not feel that the time had yet come for its appli- 
cation. The second scheme was to restrict immigration 
by requiring consular certification of immigrants. This 
plan has been much advocated, and if it were possible 
to carry it out thoroughly and to add very largely to the 
number of our consuls in order to do so, it would no 
doubt be effective and beneficial. But the committee 
was satisfied that consular certification was, under exist- 
ing circumstances, impractical ; that the necessary ma- 
chinery could not be provided ; that it would lead to 
many serious questions with foreign governments ; that it 
could not be properly and justly enforced ; and that it 
would take a long time to put it in operation. It is not 



THE RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION. 247 

necessary to go further into the details whieli brought the 
committee to this conchision. It is sufficient to say here 
that the opinion of the committee is shared, they believe, 
by all expert judges who have given the most careful 
attention to the question. 

The third method was to exclude all immigrants who 
could neither read nor write, and this is the plan which 
was adopted by the committee and which is embodied in 
this bill. In their report the committee have shown by 
statistics, which have been collected and tabulated with 
great care, the emigrants who would be affected by this 
illiteracy test. It is not necessary for me here to do 
more than summarize the results of the committee's inves- 
tigation, which have been set forth fully in their report. 
It is found, in the first place, that the illiteracy test will 
bear most heavily upon the Italians, Russians, Poles, 
Hungarians, Greeks, and Asiatics, and very lightly, or 
not at all, upon English-speaking emigrants, or Germans, 
Scandinavians, and French. In other words, the races most 
affected by the illiteracy test are those whose emigration 
to this country has begun within the last twenty years 
and swelled rapidly to enormous proportions, races with 
which the English-speaking people have never hitherto as- 
similated, and who are most alien to the great body of the 
people of the United States. On the other hand, immi- 
grants from the United Kingdom and of those races which 
are most closely related to the English-speaking people, 
and M'ho with the English-speaking people themselves 
founded the American colonies and built up the United 
States, are affected but little by the proposed test. 
These races would not be prevented by this law from 
coming to this country in practically undiminished num- 
bers. These kindred races also are those who alone 



248 THE RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION. 

go to the Western and Southern States, where immigrants 
are desired, and take up our unoccupied lands. The races 
which would suffer most seriously by exclusion under the 
proposed bill furnish the immigrants who do not go to the 
West or South, where immigration is needed, but who re- 
main on the Atlantic seaboard, where immigration is not 
needed and where their presence is most injurious and 
undesirable. 

The statistics prepared by the committee show further 
that the immigrants excluded by the illiteracy test are 
those who remain for the most part in congested masses 
in our great cities. They furnish, as other tables show, 
a large proportion of the population of the slums. The 
committee's report proves that illiteracy runs parallel with 
the slum population, with criminals, paupers, and juve- 
nile delinquents of foreign birth or parentage, whose per- 
centage is out of all proportion to their share of the total 
population when compared with the percentage of the 
same classes among the native born. It also appears from 
investigations which have been made that the immigrants 
who would be shut out by the illiteracy test are those who 
bring least money to the country and come most quickly 
upon private or public charity for support. The replies 
of the governors of twenty-six states to the Immigration 
Restriction League show that in only two cases are immi- 
grants of the classes affected by the illiteracy test desired, 
and those are of a single race. All the other immigrants 
mentioned by the governors as desirable belong to the 
races which are but slightly affected by the provisions of 
this bill. It is also proved that the classes now excluded 
by law — the criminals, the diseased, the paupers, and the 
contract laborers — are furnished chiefly by the same races 
as those most affected by the test of illiteracy. The same 



THE RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION. 249 

is true as to those immigrants who come to this country 
for a brief season and return to their native land, taking 
with them the money they have earned in the United 
States. There is no more hui'tful and undesirable class 
of immigrants from every point of view than these " birds 
of passage," and the tables show that the races furnishing 
the largest number of " birds of passage " have also the 
gi'catest proportion of illiterates. 

These facts prove to demonstration that the exclusion 
of immigrants unable to read or write, as proposed by this 
bill, will operate against the most undesirable and harm- 
ful part of our present immigration, and shut out elements 
which no thoughtful or patriotic man can wish to see mul- 
tiplied among the people of the United States. The re- 
port of the committee also proves that this bill meets the 
great requirement of all legislation of this character, in 
excluding the greatest proportion possible of thoroughly 
undesirable and dangerous immigrants and the smallest 
proportion of immigrants who are unobjectionable. 

I have said enough to show what the effects of this bill 
would be, and that if enacted into law it would be fair in 
its operation and highly beneficial in its results. It now 
remains for me to discuss the second and larger question, 
as to the advisability of restricting immigration at all. 
This is a subject of the greatest magnitude and the most 
far-reaching importance. It has two sides, the economic 
and the social. As to the former, but few words are ne- 
cessar3\ There is no one thing which does so much to 
bring about a reduction of wages and to injure the Ameri- 
can wage earner as the unlimited introduction of cheap 
foreign labor through unrestricted immigration. Statis- 
tics show that the change in the race character of our im- 
migration has been accompanied by a corresponding de- 



250 THE RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION. 

cline in its quality. The number of skilled mechanics 
and of the persons trained to some occupation or pursuit 
has fallen off, while the number of those without occupa- 
tion or training, that is, who are totally unskilled, has 
risen in our recent immigration to enormous proportions. 
This low, unskilled labor is the most deadly enemy of 
the American wage earner, and does more than anything 
else toward lowering his wages and forcing down his 
standard of living. An attempt was made, with the gen- 
eral assent of both political parties, to meet this crying 
evil some years ago by the passage of what are known as 
the contract-labor laws. That legislation was excellent 
in intention, but has proved of but little value in practice. 
It has checked to a certain extent the introduction of 
cheap, low-class labor in large masses into the United 
States. It has made it a little more difficult for such 
labor to come here ; but the labor of this class continues 
to come, even if not in the same way, and the total amount 
of it has not been materially reduced. Even if the con- 
tract-labor laws were enforced intelligently and thoroughly, 
there is no reason to suppose that they would have any 
adequate effect in checking the evil which they were de- 
signed to stop. It is perfectly clear, after the experience 
of several years, that the only relief which can come to the 
American wage earner from the competition of low-class 
immigrant labor must be by general laws restricting the 
total amount of immigration, and framed in such a way as 
to affect most strongly those elements of the immigration 
which furnish the low, unskilled, and ignorant foreign labor. 
It is not necessary to enter further into a discussion 
of the economic side of the general policy of restricting 
immigration. In this direction the argument is unanswer- 
able. If we have any regard for the welfare, the wages, 



THE RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION. 251 

or the standard of life of American workingmen, we 
should take immediate steps to restrict foreign immigra- 
tion. There is no danger, at present at all events, to 
our workingmen from the coming of skilled mechanics 
or trained and educated men with a settled occupation or 
pursuit, for immigrants of this class will never seek to 
lower the American standard of life and wages. On the 
contrary, they desire the same standard for themselves. 
But there is an appalling danger to the American wage 
earner from the flood of low, unskilled, ignorant, foreign 
labor which has poured into the country for some years 
past, and which not only takes lower wages, but accepts a 
standard of life and living so low that the American 
workingman cannot compete with it. 

I now come to the aspect of this question which is 
graver and more serious than any other. The injury of 
unrestricted immigration to American wages and Ameri- 
can standards of living is sufficiently plain and is bad 
enough, but the danger which this immigration threatens 
to the quality of our citizenship is far worse. That which 
it concerns us to know, and that which is more vital to us 
as a people than all possible questions of tariff or cur- 
rency, is whether the quality of our citizenship is endan- 
gered by the present course and character of immigra- 
tion to the United States. To determine this question 
we must look into the history of our race. 

Two hundred years ago Daniel Defoe, in some very 
famous verses called the " True-born Englishman," de- 
fended William III, the greatest ruler, with the excep- 
tion of Cromwell, whom England has had since the days 
of the Plantagenets, against the accusation so constantly 
made at the time that he was a foreigner. The line taken 
by Defoe is the highly characteristic one of a fierce at- 



252 THE RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION. 

tack upon his opponents. He declared, in lines which 
were as forcible as they were rough, that the English- 
speaking people drew their descent from many sources ; 
that there was no such thing as a pure-blooded English- 
man ; and that King William was as much an English- 
man as any of them. The last jiroposition, in regard to 
the King, whose mother was a Stuart, was undoubtedly 
true. It was also superficially true that Englishmen 
drew their blood from many strains ; but the rest of the 
argument was ludicrously false if the matter is considered 
in the light of modern history and modern science. 

For practical purposes in considering the question of 
race and in dealing with the civilized peoples of western 
Europe and of America, there is no such thing as a race 
of original purity according to the divisions of ethnical 
science. In considering the practical problems of the 
present time we can deal only with artificial races, — that 
is, races like the English-speaking people, the French, or 
the Germans, — who have been developed as races by the 
operation during a long period of time of climatic influ- 
ences, wars, migrations, conquests, and industrial develop- 
ment. To the philologist and the ethnologist it is of 
great importance to determine the ethnical divisions of 
mankind in the earliest historic times. To the scientific 
modern historian, to the student of social phenomena, and 
to the statesman alike, the earlv ethnic divisions are of 
little consequence ; but the sharply marked race divisions 
which have been gradually developed by the conditions 
and events of the last thousand years are absolutely vital. 
It is by these conditions and events that the races or na- 
tions which to-day govern the world have been produced, 
and it is their characteristics which it is important for us 
to understand. 



THE RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION. 253 

How, then, has the English-speaking race, which to-day 
controls so large a part of the earth's surface, been 
formed ? Great Britain and Ireland at the time of the 
Roman conquest were populated by Celtic tribes. After 
the downfall of the lionian Empire these tribes remained 
in possession of the islands, with probably but very slight 
infusion of Latin blood. Then came what is commonly 
known as the Saxon invasion. Certain North German 
tribes, own brothers to those other tribes which swept 
southward and westward over the whole lioman Empire, 
crossed the English Channel and landed in the corner of 
England known as the Isle of Thanet. They were hard 
fighters, pagans, and adventurers. They swept over the 
whole of England and the Lowlands of Scotland. A few 
British words like basket, relating to domestic employments, 
indicate that only women of the conquered race, and not 
many of those, were spared. The extermination was fierce 
and thorough. The native Celts were driven back into 
the Highlands of Scotland and to the edge of the sea in 
Cornwall and Wales, while all the rest of the land became 
Saxon. 

The conquerors established themselves in their new 
country, were converted to Christianity, and began to ad- 
vance in civilization. Then came a fresh wave from the 
Germanic tribes. This time it was the Danes. They 
were of the same blood as the Saxons, and the two kindred 
races fought hard for the possession of England, until the 
last comers prevailed and their chiefs reached the throne. 
Then in 1066 there was another invasion, this time from 
the shores of France. But the new invaders and con- 
querors were not Frenchmen. As Carlyle says, they were 
only Saxons who spoke French. A hundred years before, 
these Normans, or Northmen, northernmost of all the Ger- 



254 THE RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION. 

mauic tribes, had descended from their land of snow and 
ice upon Europe. They were the most remarkable of all 
the people who poured out of the Germanic forests. They 
came upon Europe in their long, low ships, a set of fight- 
ing pirates and buccaneers; and yet these same pirates 
brought with them out of the darkness and cold of the 
north a remarkable literature and a strange and poetic 
mythology. Wherever they went they conquered, and 
wherever they stopped they set up for themselves duke- 
doms, principalities, and kingdoms. To them we owe the 
marvels of Gothic architecture, for it was they who were 
the great buildei's and architects of mediseval Europe. 
They were great military engineers as well, and revived 
the art of fortified defense, which had been lost to the 
world. They were great statesmen and great generals, 
and they had only been in Normandy about a hundred 
years when they crossed the English Channel, conquered 
the country, and gave to England for many generations 
to come her kings and nobles. But the Normans in their 
turn were absorbed or blended with the great mass of the 
Danes and the still earlier Saxons. In reality, they were 
all one people. They had different names and spoke 
differing dialects, but their blood and their characteristics 
were the same. And so this Germanic people of one blood, 
coming through various channels, dwelt in England, as- 
similating more or less and absorbing to a greater or less 
degree their neighbors of the northern and western Celtic 
fringe, with an occasional fresh infusion from their own 
brethren who dwelt in the low sea-girt lands at the mouths 
of the Scheldt and Rhine. In the course of the centuries 
these people were welded together and had made a new 
speech and a new race, with strong and well-defined qual- 
ities, both mental and moral. 



THE RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION. 255 

When the Reformation came this work was pretty- 
nearly done ; and after that great movement had struck off 
the shackles from the human mind, the English-speaking 
people were ready to come forward and begin to play 
their part in a world where the despotism of the church 
had been broken, and where political despotism was about 
to enter on its great struggle against the forces of freedom. 
Let me describe what these English people were at the 
close of the sixteenth century, when the work of race 
making had been all done and the achievements of the 
race so made were about to begin. I will take for this 
purpose, not words of my own, but the brilliant sentences 
of one of the greatest of modern English writers : — 

In those past silent centuries, among those silent classes, 
much had been going on. Not only had red deer in the New 
and other forests been got preserved, and shot ; and treacheries 
of Simon de Montfort, wars of Red and White Roses, battles of 
Crecy, battles of Bosworth, and many other battles been got 
transacted, and adjusted ; but England wholly, not without sore 
toil and aching bones to the millions of sires and the millions of 
sons these eighteen generations, had been got drained, and tilled, 
covered with yellow harvests, beautiful and rich possessions ; 
the mud-wooden Ceasters and Chesters had become steepled, 
tile-roofed, compact towns. Sheffield had taken to the manu- 
facture of Sheffield whittles; Worstead could from wool spin 
yarn, and knit or weave the same into stockings or breeches for 
men. England had property valuable to the auctioneer ; but 
the accumulate manufacturing, commercial, economic skill which 
lay impalpably warehoused in English hands and heads, what 
auctioneer could estimate ? 

Hardly an Englishman to be met with but could do something 
— some cunninger thing than break his fellow-creature's head 
with battle-axes. The seven incorporated trades, with their 
million guild brethren, with their hammers, their shuttles, and 



256 THE RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION. 

tools ; what an army — fit to conquer that land of England, as 
we say, and to hold it conquered. Nay, strangest of all, the 
English people had acquired the faculty and habit of thinking, 
even of believing; individual conscience had unfolded itself 
among them ; conscience, and intelligence its handmaid. Ideas 
of innumerable kinds were circulating among these men ; wit- 
ness one Shakespeare, a wool-comber, poacher, or whatever else, 
at Stratford, in Warwickshire, who happened to write books — 
the finest human figure, as I apprehend, that nature has hitherto 
seen fit to make of our widely diffused Teutonic clay. Saxon, 
Norman, Celt, or Sarmat, I find no human soul so beautiful these 
fifteen hundred known years — our supreme modern European 
man. Him England had contrived to realize. Were there not 
ideas — ideas poetic and also puritanic, that had to seek utter- 
ance in the notablest way ? England had got her Shakespeare, 
but was now about to get her Milton and Oliver Cromwell. 
This, too, we will call a new expansion, hard as it might be to 
articulate and adjust ; this, that a man could actually have a 
conscience for his own behoof, and not for his priest's only ; 
that his priest, be who he might, would henceforth have 
to take that fact along with him. One of the hardest things to 
adjust. It is not adjusted down to this hour. It lasts onward 
to the time they call " glorious revolution " before so much as a 
reasonable truce can be made and the war proceed by logic 
mainly. And still it is war, and no peace, unless we call waste 
vacancy peace. But it needed to be adjusted, as the others had 
done, as still others will do. 

This period, when the work of centuries which had re- 
sulted in the making of the English people was complete, 
and when they were entering upon their career of world 
conquest, is of peculiar interest to us. Then it was that 
from the England of Shakespeare and Bacon and Raleigh, 
and later from the England of Pym and Hampden and 
Cromwell and Milton, Englishmen fared forth across the 



THE RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION. 257 

great ocean to the North American Continent. The first 
Eno'lishnien to come and to remain here settled on the 
James River, and there kiid the foundation o£ tlie great 
State of Virginia. The next landed much farther to the 
north. I will again borrow the words of Carlyle to de- 
scribe the coming of this second English migration : — 

But now on the industrial side, while this great constitutional 
controversy and revolt of the middle class had not ended, had 
yet but begun, what a shoot was that that England, carelessly, 
in quest of other objects, struck out across the ocean, into the 
waste land, which it named New England. Hail to thee, poor 
little ship Mayflower, of Delft-Haven ! poor common-looking 
ship, hired by common charter party for coined dollars ; calked 
with mere oakum and tar ; provisioned with vulgarest biscuit and 
bacon ; yet what ship Argo, or miraculous epic ship built by 
the sea gods, was other than a foolish bumbarge in comparison ? 
Golden fleeces or the like these sailed for, with or without 
effect ; thou, little Mayflower, hadst in thee a veritable Pro- 
methean spark ; the life spark of the largest nation on our earth, 
so we may already name the transatlantic Saxon nation. They 
went seeking leave to hear sermon in their own method, these 
Mayflower Puritans ; a most honest indispensable search ; and 
yet, like Saul the son of Kish, seeking a small thing, they 
found this unexpected great thing. Honor to the brave and 
true ! they verily, we say, carry fire from heaven, and have a 
power that themselves dream not of. Let all men honor Puri- 
tanism, since God has so honored it. 

At the period of these two English settlements, and 
just about at the same time, the Dutch settled at the 
mouth of the Hudson and the Swedes upon the Delaware. 
Both, be it remembered, were of the same original race 
stock as the English settlers of Virginia and New Eng- 
land, who were destined to be so predominant in the 



258 THE RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION. 

North American colonies. At the close of the seven- 
teenth century and during the eighteenth there came to 
America three other migrations of people sufficiently 
numerous to be considered in estimating the races from 
which the colonists were derived. These were the Scotch- 
Irish, the Germans, and the French Huguenots. The 
Scotch-Irish, as they are commonly called with us, were 
immigrants from the north of Ireland. They were chiefly 
descendants of Cromwell's soldiers, who had been settled 
in Ulster, and of the Lowland Scotch, who had come to 
the same region. They were the men who made the 
famous defense of Londonderry against James II, and 
differed in no essential respect either of race or language 
from the English who had jareceded them in America. 
Some of them settled in New Hampshire, but most of 
them in the western part of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and 
Virginia. They were found in all the colonies in a 
greater or less degree, and were a vigorous body of men, 
who have contributed very largely to the upbuilding of 
the United States and played a great part in our history. 
The German immigrants were the Protestants of the 
Palatinate, and they settled in large numbers in western 
Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. The Huguenots, 
although not very numerous, were a singularly fine body 
of people. They had shown the highest moral qualities in 
their long struggle for religious freedom. They had faced 
war, massacre, and persecution for nearly two centuries, 
and had never wavered in their constancy to the creed in 
which they believed. Harried and driven out of France 
by Louis XIV, they had sought refuge in Holland, in 
England, and in the New World. They were to be found 
in this country in all our colonies, and everywhere they 
became a most valuable addition to our population. 



THE RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION. 259 

Such, then, briefly were the people composing the colo- 
nies when we faced England in the war for independ- 
ence. It will be observed that, with the exception of the 
Huguenot French, who formed but a small percentage 
of the total population, the people of the thirteen colonies 
were all of the same original race stocks. The Dutch, 
the Swedes, and the Germans simply blended again with 
the English-speaking people, who like them were de- 
scended from the Germanic tribes whom Caesar fought 
and Tacitus described. 

During the present century, down to 1875, there have 
been three large migrations to this country in addition to 
the always steady stream from Great Britain ; one came 
from Ireland about the middle of the century, and some- 
what later one from Germany and one from Scandinavia, 
in which is included Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. 
The Irish, although of a different race stock originally, 
have been closely associated with the English-speaking 
people for nearly a thousand years. They speak the 
same language, and during that long period the two races 
have lived side by side, and to some extent intermarried. 
The Germans and Scandinavians are again people of the 
same race stock as the English who founded and built up 
the colonies. During this century, down to 1875, then, 
as in the two which preceded it, there had been scarcely 
any immigration to this country except from kindred or 
allied races, and no other which was sufficiently numer- 
ous to have produced any effect on the national character- 
istics, or to be taken into account here. Since 1875, how- 
ever, there has been a great change. While the people 
who for two hundred and fifty years have been migrating 
to America have continued to furnish large numbers of 
immigrants to the United States, other races of totally 



260 THE RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION. 

different race origin, with whom the English-speaking 
people have never hitherto been assimilated or brought 
in contact, have suddenly begun to immigrate to the 
United States in large numbers. Russians, Hungarians, 
Poles, Bohemians, Italians, Greeks, and even Asiatics, 
whose immigration to America was almost unknown 
twenty years ago, have during the last twenty years 
poured in in steadily increasing numbers, until now they 
nearly equal the immigration of those races kindred in 
blood or speech, or both, by whom the United States has 
hitherto been built up and the American people formed. 

This momentous fact is the one which confronts us 
to-day, and if continued, it carries with it future conse- 
quences far deeper than any other event of our times. It 
involves, in a word, nothing less than the possibility of a 
great and perilous change in the veiy fabric of our race. 

The English-speaking race, as I have shown, has been 
made slowly during the centuries. Nothing has happened 
thus far to change it radically here. In the United States, 
after allowing for the variations produced b}"- new cli- 
matic influences and changed conditions of life and of 
political institutions, it is still in the great essentials fun- 
damentally the same race. The additions in this country 
until the present time have been from kindred people, or 
from those with whom we have been long allied and who 
speak the same language. By those who look at this 
question superficially, we hear it often said that the Eng- 
lish-speaking people, especially in America, are a mixture 
of races. Analysis shows that the actual mixture of blood 
in the English-speaking race is very small, and that while 
the English-speaking people are derived through different 
channels, no doubt, there is among them none the less 
an overwhelming preponderance of the same race stock, 



THE RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION. 261 

that of the great Germanic tribes who reached from Nor- 
way to the Alps. They have been welded together by more 
than a thousand years of wars, conquests, migrations, and 
struggles, both at home and abroad, and In so doing they 
have attained a fixity and definiteness of national charac- 
ter unknown to any other people. Let me quote on this 
point a disinterested witness of another race and another 
language, M. Gustave Le Bon, a distinguished French 
writer of the highest scientific training and attainments, 
who says In his very remarkable book on the Evolution 
of Races : — 

Most of the historic races of Europe are still in process of 
formation, and it is important to realize this fact in order to un- 
derstand their history. The English alone represent a race al- 
most entirely fixed. In them, the ancient Briton, the Saxon, and 
the Norman have been effaced to form a new and very homo- 
geneous type. 

It being admitted, therefore, that a historic race of 
fixed type has been developed, it remains to consider what 
this means, what a race is, and what a change would por- 
tend. That which Identifies a race and sets it apart from 
others is not to be found merely or ultimately In Its physi- 
cal appearance. Its Institutions, its laws. Its literature, or 
even its language. These are in the last analysis only the 
expression or the evidence of race. The achievements 
of the intellect pass easily from land to land and from 
people to people. The telephone, invented but yesterday. 
Is used to-day in China, in Australia, or in South Africa 
as freely as in the United States. The book which the 
press to-day gives to the world In English is scattered 
to-morrow throughout the earth in every tongue, and the 
thoughts of the writer become the property of mankind. 
You can take a Hindoo and give him the highest educa- 



262 THE RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION. 

tion the world can afford. He has a keen intelligence. 
He will absorb the learning of Oxford, he will acquire 
the manners and habits of England, he will sit in the 
British Parliament, but you cannot make him an Eng- 
lishman. Yet, he, like his conqueror, is of the great 
Indo-European family. But it has taken six thousand 
years and more to create the differences which exist be- 
tween them. You cannot efface those differences thus 
made, by education in a single life, because they do not 
rest upon the intellect. What, then, is the matter of race 
which separates the Englishman from the Hindoo and the 
American from the Indian ? It is something deeper and 
more fundamental than anything which concerns the 
intellect. We all know it instinctively, although it is so 
impalpable that we can scarcely define it, and yet is so 
deeply marked that even the physiological differences be- 
tween the Negro, the Mongol, and the Caucasian are not 
more persistent or more obvious. When we speak of a race, 
then, we do not mean its expressions in art or in language, 
or its achievements in knowledge. We mean the moral 
and intellectual characters, which in their association make 
the soul of a race, and which represent the product of all 
its past, the inheritance of all its ancestors, and the mo- 
tives of all its conduct. The men of each race possess an 
indestructible stock of ideas, traditions, sentiments, modes 
of thought, an unconscious inheritance from their ances- 
tors, upon which argument has no effect. What makes 
a race are their mental and, above all, their moral char- 
acteristics, the slow growth and accumulation of centuries 
of toil and conflict. These are the qualities which deter- 
mine their social efficiency as a people, which make one 
race rise and another fall, which we draw out of a dim 
past through many generations of ancestors, about which 



THE RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION. 263 

we cannot argue, but in which we blindly believe, and 
which guide us in our short-lived generation as they have 
guided the race itself across the centuries. 

I have cited a witness of the highest authority and en- 
tire disinterestedness to support what I have said as to 
the fixed and determinate character of the English-speak- 
ing race. Now that I come to show what that race is by 
recounting its qualities and characteristics, I will not trust 
myself to speak, for I might be accused of prejudice, but 
I will quote again M. Le Bon, who is not of our race nor 
of our speech. 

He says : — 

Inability to foresee the remote consequences of actions and the 
tendency to be guided only by the instinct of the moment, con- 
demn an individual as well as a race to remain always in a very 
inferior condition. It is only in proportion as they have been 
able to master their instincts — that is to say, as they have ac- 
quired strength of will and consequently empire over themselves 
— that nations have been able to understand the importance of 
discipline, the necessity of sacrificing themselves to an ideal and 
lifting themselves up to civilization. If it were necessary to 
determine by a single test the social level of races in history, I 
would take willingly as a standard the aptitude displayed by 
each in controlling their impulses. The Romans in antiquity, 
the Anglo-Americans in modern times, represent the people 
who have possessed this quality in the highest degree. It has 
powerfully contributed to assure their greatness. 

Again he says, speaking now more in detail : — 

Let us summarize, then, in a few words the characteristics of 
the Anglo-Saxon race, which has peopled the United States. 
There is not perhaps in the world one which is more homogene- 
ous and whose mental constitution is more easy to define in its 
great outline. The dominant qualities of this mental constitution 
are, from the standpoint of character, a will power which scarcely 



264 THE RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION. 

any people except perhaps the Romans have possessed, an uncon- 
querable energy, a very great initiative, an absolute empire over 
self, a sentiment of independence pushed even to excessive un- 
sociability, a puissant activity, very keen religious sentiments, 
a very fixed morality, a very clear idea of duty. 

Again he says : — 

But, above all, it is in a new country like America that we 
must follow the astonishing progress due to the mental consti- 
tution of the English race. Transported to a wilderness inhabited 
only by savages and having only itself to count upon, we know 
what that race has done. Scarcely a century has been necessary 
to those people to place themselves in the first rank of the great 
powers of the world, and to-day there is hardly one who could 
struggle against them. 



*&>& ^ o 



Such achievements as M. Le Bon credits us with are 
due to the qualities of the American people, whom he, as 
a man of science looking below the surface, rightly de- 
scribes as homogeneous. Those qualities are moral far more 
than intellectual, and it is on the moral qualities of the 
English-speaking race that our history, our victories, and 
all our future rest. There is only one way in which you 
can lower those qualities or weaken those characteristics, 
and that is by breeding them out. If a lower race mixes 
with a higher in sufficient numbers, history teaches us that 
the lower race will prevail. The lower race will absorb 
the higher, not the higher the lower, when the two strains 
approach equality in numbers. In other words, there is 
a limit to the capacity of any race for assimilating and 
elevating an inferior race ; and when you begin to pour in 
in unlimited numbers people of alien or lower races of less 
social efficiency and less moral force, you are running the 
most frightful risk that a people can run. The lowering 
of a great race means not only its own decline, but that 



THE RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION. 265 

of civilization. M. Le Bon sees no danger to us in immi- 
gration, and his reason for this view is one of the most 
interesting things he says. He declares that the people of 
the United States will never be injured by immigration, 
because the moment they see the peril the great race in- 
stinct will assert itself and shut the immigration out. The 
reports of the Treasury for the last fifteen years show that 
the peril is at hand. I trust that the prediction of science 
is true, and that the unerring instinct of the race will shut 
the danger out, as it closed the door upon the coming of 
the Chinese. 

That the peril is not imaginary or the offspring of race 
prejudice, I will prove by another disinterested witness, 
also a Fi'enchman. M. Paul Bourget, the distinguished 
novelist, visited this country a few years ago, and wrote 
a book containing his impressions of what he saw. He was 
not content, as many travelers are, to say that our cabs 
were high-priced, the streets of New York noisy, the cars 
hot, and then feel that he had disposed of the United 
States and the people thereof for time and for eternity. 
M. Bourget saw here a great country and a great people ; 
in other words, a great fact in modei*n times. Our ways 
were not his ways, nor our thoughts his thoughts, and he 
probably liked his own country and his own ways much 
better ; but he none the less studied us carefully and sym- 
pathetically. What most interested him was to see whe- 
ther the socialistic movements, which now occupy the 
alarmed attention of Europe, were equally threatening 
here. His conclusion, which I will state in a few words, is 
of profound interest. He expected to find signs of a com- 
ing war of classes, and he went home believing that if any 
danger threatened the United States it was not from a 
war of classes,' but a war of races. 



266 THE RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION. 

Mr. President, more precious even than forms of govern- 
ment are the mental and moral qualities which make what 
we call our race. While those stand unimpaired all is safe. 
When those decline all is imperiled. They are exposed to 
but a single danger, and that is by changing the quality 
of our race and citizenship through the wholesale infusion 
of races whose traditions and inheritances, whose thoughts 
and whose beliefs are wholly alien to ours, and with whom 
we have never assimilated or even been associated in the 
past. The danger has begun. It is small as yet, compar- 
atively speaking, but it is large enough to warn us to act 
while there is yet time and while it can be done easily 
and efficiently. There lies the peril at the portals of our 
land ; there is pressing the tide of unrestricted immigra- 
tion. The time has certainly come, if not to stop, at least 
to check, to sift, and to restrict those immigrants. In 
careless strength, with generous hand, we have kept our 
gates wide open to all the world. If we do not close them, 
we should at least place sentinels beside them to challenge 
those who would pass through. The gates which admit men 
to the United States and to citizenship in the great repub- 
lic should no longer be left unguarded. 

O Liberty, white Goddess ! is it well 

To leave the gates unguarded ? On thy breast 

Fold Sorrow's children, soothe the hurts of fate, 

Lift the down-trodden, but with hand of steel 

Stay those who to thy sacred portals come 

To waste the gifts of freedom. Have a care 

Lest from thy brow the clustered stars be torn 

And trampled in the dust. For so of old 

The thronging Goth and Vandal trampled Rome, 

And where the temples of the Caesars stood 

The lean wolf unmolested made her lair. ^ 

* Aldrich, Unguarded Gates. 



SPEECH BEFORE THE REPUBLICAN STATE 
CONVENTION OF MASSACHUSETTS 

MARCH 27, 1896. 



SPEECH BEFORE THE REPUBLICAN STATE 
CONVENTION OF MASSACHUSETTS 

March 27, 1896.i 



Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Conven- 
tion : I wish first to thank you for the welcome you gave 
me to-day. Coming before you after an absence of some 
months from Massachusetts, meeting a Republican con- 
vention for the first time in nearly two years, I assure 
you that it makes me feel more strongly than ever that 
there is nothing which I value or appreciate more than 
the cordial greeting of the Republican Convention of 
Massachusetts. 

1 also have to thank you for the honorable responsibility 
that you have imposed upon me to-day. I think I inter- 
pret aright not merely the words of your resolutions, but 
what you intended when you selected my associates and 
myself to represent you at St. Louis.^ I think I undei'stand 
you to mean that you desire us to go out there and make 

' This speech was made without a line written beforehand or even 
a note. My only text, therefore, was the report which appeared the 
next morning in the Boston Journal, and I have allowed it to stand as 
reported except for a few corrections made at the moment, with all 
its imperfections on its head, and with all the interruptions as set 
down by the stenographer. 

2 The National Republican Convention was held that year in 
St. Louis. 



270 REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION. 

the best fis'ht we can for the nomination of Mr. Reed, and 
that you wish us also to go there and make a stubborn and 
determined Massachusetts fight for a right platform, for 
sound money, and for a protective tariff. 

We are on the eve of a great Republican victory. It is 
not worth while to enter into a discussion of details. The 
country is tired of that superlative failure, the Democratic 
party. The people are going to turn them out. They are 
going to give us our chance, and it behooves us to see that 
we use that great opportunity well. We do not go to 
St. Louis to nominate a candidate simply ; we go there to 
nominate a President — a grave task, and one on which 
the fate of the party and the welfare of our country will 
depend for the next four years and for many years to 
come! 

Therefore, what we should consider with great care 
to-day is not only our selection of a candidate, but also the 
statement of principles which we present to the country. 
We need a candidate, we need a President, who will not 
only show his fidelity to his party principles — every Re- 
publican candidate is faithful to Republican principles — 
but who will be a leader, a man who can unite the party, 
who can carry the legislation which the country demands ; 
who on the 5th day of next March will be ready to summon 
Congress in extra session and not stop to consider appoint- 
ments, or patronage, or anything else, but say to Con- 
gress and the country : " The Treasury is empty ; we need 
revenue ; we need a proper tariff ; give me those measures 
to sign." 

It is no light task to take up the work of the govern- 
ment after the Democratic party has been performing 
with it for two years. We have got to meet a short reve- 
nue, an insolvent treasury, a growing debt, a bad tariff, a 



REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION. 271 

disordered currency. These are grave problems, requiring 
all the strength, all the power that we have. We took the 
country once before after the Democrats had been playing 
with it. We took it in 1861. It was in a far, far worse 
condition then than it is to-day, bad as to-day's condition 
is. We met the issues then. Have we fallen short of the 
old standard ? Shall we not be able to meet them now ? I 
think we shall. But we shall have much to do. We have 
no promises of millenniums to make. Promises of millen- 
niums were made by the Democratic party, and the coun- 
try has been starving in that barren pasture for the last 
three years. We say we are going to do our best. That 
we can promise you. We believe we can make this coun- 
try a somewhat better place for the average man to live 
in than it has been for the last three years. We can, we 
believe, put a stop, indeed we have already put a stop, 
to the free-trade agitation, which, in its last extreme, as 
I have seen in the newspapers in Boston, leads men to 
approve a representative of the United States abroad when 
he slanders his own countrymen, and to resist the re- 
striction of immigration into the United States. That 
is the final word of free trade. We have choked that 
already. 

I believe that we are going to give you a better tariff, 
that we will pass one that will give protection and steadi- 
ness to business. We will give the government revenue, 
so that we shall not have a deficit every month. We will 
try to bring the borrowing to an end. These things I am 
confident we can do. 

And we also have to meet the money question, which 
has been so ably, so powerfully presented to you by the 
chairman of the convention to-day. That is a far more 
difficult question to deal with. We cannot hope for such 



272 REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION. 

success immediately there as we can in other directions, 
but we must face it without flinching. 

I am not going to weary you by entering into a discus- 
sion of the financial question. International bimetallism, 
in which many of us believe, is not to-day a present ques- 
tion. If bimetallism is possible, if the demonetization of 
silver by the nations of the world is an evil, as many be- 
lieve it is, it is a world evil, and must be met by a world 
remedy. It cannot be met by our undertaking to go alone 
to free silver, which means silver monometallism in this 
country, ruin to credit, disaster to business. Against 
that we must set our faces. 

The position of the Republican party is well known by 
acts which speak louder than platforms. When the House 
of Representatives voted on free silver, only twenty-seven 
Republicans were found to vote in favor of it. The Re- 
publican party in the House voted nearly nine to one 
against it. The Democrats voted two to one in favor of 
it. In the Senate the Republicans voted nearly two to 
one against it, and the Democrats two to one in its favor. 
That is the record of the party, and it is all made up. 
Every intelligent man ought to know, after the vote of 
the House, of the men fresh from the people, that no free- 
coinage law can pass Congress. Let business men take 
that much comfort to heart. That fact has been demon- 
strated by the present House of Representatives, but that 
is not enough. 

We want to speak, in my judgment, as we have spoken 
in our resolutions to-day. We have made for years con- 
cession after concession to our brethren of the silver states, 
and this year they took a tariff bill by the throat, which 
had no connection with the silver question, and destroyed 
it in the Senate. We must take our stand. The day of 



REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION. 273 

concessions has passed. If concessions are to come, it is 
time they came from the other side. 

Now that is the position I want to see the Republican 
party take. We lost our bond bill with the silver busi- 
ness ; as I said, we also lost our tariff bill, but not merely 
by the votes of the five Republican silver Senators. Don't 
imagine they were the only people who refused to take it 
up. They were supported by the united vote of the 
Democratic and Populist parties, and the condition of the 
United States Senate to-day is owing to the fact that so 
many seats are filled with Democrats and Populists who 
landed there on that great wave known as tariff reform. 

The House has been all right. They sent up in one 
week the bond bill and a tariff bill. Get the Senate as 
you got the House, get the President as you got the House, 
and you will have no trouble with your tariff or your cur- 
rency measures. They will be brought up and voted on. 

These questions are of vast moment ; they are of the 
deepest importance to the business interests of the country. 
We all of us feel their gravity ; they touch us at every 
point. To them we must give our best effort for their 
right settlement. 

But these are not the only questions. There are ques- 
tions which confront every nation, as they confront every 
man, which cannot be settled on business principles, which 
have nothing to do with business, which must be decided 
outside of the question of money. Suppose, for example, 
the public school system of our country is attacked. Are 
we to be told that we must not defend it because it is likely 
to make disturbance in the money market ? Never in the 
world. 

I believe, for one, that we ought to restrict immigration. 
I think the manner in which we deal with that question 



274 REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION. 

is of greater importance to the future of this country 
than either tariff or currency ; and am I to be deterred 
from dealing with it because somebody tells me that the 
capitalist who is building a railroad cannot get his labor 
as cheaply as if the gates were not shut, or that he wants 
to import foreign labor freely for his mills? I reply to 
him, " This is not a money question. It involves the 
quality of American citizenship and the wages of American 
labor, and those must be considered on different grounds." 

Now, then, Mr. Chairman, to the same class of ques- 
tions belong our relations with the other nations of the 
earth — what is commonly called our foreign policy. We 
have had two questions of this character before the Con- 
gress this winter. The first one is the Venezuela case, 
famous and known to you all. For twenty years we have 
been seeking to settle that question by arbitration ; for 
twenty years we have been put off. At last we met with 
a blunt refusal, and the President replied with the message 
of the 17th of December, asserting the Monroe Doctrine 
and the rights of the United States. 

Congress came to his support. I will not pause to dis- 
cuss the question of manners and phrases ; I am only 
concerned with the principle which he announced. Con- 
gress came to his side without a dissenting voice. The 
American people came to his side like one man. 

There was a little discordant note even in that first rush 
when the President appealed to the country — one little note 
coming from the small and dwindling band who for many 
years past have devoted themselves exclusively to the wor- 
ship of the President of the United States — that little 
Mugwump band ! Think of the horror of their position ! 
They were forced to choose between their idol and Eng- 
land ! Gentlemen, let us be just, even to our opponents 



REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTIOX. 275 

— they did not hesitate ; they threw their idol in the dust 
and stood by England. 

Now, what was the question ? A great many words have 
been written and spoken about it, and yet it can be stated 
in a sentence. There is a disputed territory down there 
which involves the mouth of the Orinoco, one of the great 
river systems of South America, and P^ngland said that 
territory belonged to her as heir of the Dutch. Venezuela 
said it belonged to her as the heir of Spain. England de- 
clined to arbitrate it, and our position is this : We do not 
care if, by the award of an impartial tribunal, England gets 
every inch of her claim. We are not struggling for South 
American territory. But it is vital to us how England gets 
it. If she takes it by the strong hand — disputed land, 
fairly disputed — if she takes it by the strong hand and 
says, " We will not arbitrate," and we yield, we can offer 
no opposition to any other European Power that chooses 
to come in — and they would come in, and they would 
parcel out South America as they parceled out Africa. 
The hunger for land is on the nations of the earth to-day, 
and they would soon be there parceling it out, and we 
should have tied our hands by our action in regard to 
Venezuela, thereby preventing our making a remon- 
strance. We should find ourselves in a short time sur- 
rounded by formidable neighbors, whose presence would 
compel us to become a great military Power like the 
Powers of Europe. 

That is what is at stake in Venezuela — not a few 
hundred miles of swamp, if you please, but a great princi- 
ple ; and the President made his declaration and Congress 
stood firm, and has stood firm. 

When I say Congress has stood firm, I mean that which 
is greater than Congress and without which Congresses and 



276 REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION. 

Presidents can do nothing — the American people — have 
stood firm. 

The cry of war was raised, stocks were poured out from 
London into the New York market. It was done to drive 
us from our position, for there never was any talk of war 
among responsible men charged with the heavy duty of 
government. No man, no sane, conscientious man, can 
regard a war between the two great English-speaking 
peoples as other than the most dire calamity. I should be 
the last to advocate war, and never have done so. War 
would be a calamity, and there never was any foundation 
in the cry. We have no desire to pick a quarrel with Eng- 
land, and England has no desire to fight us. We want 
only, and we mean to have, a just consideration of our 

rights. 

A great firm of London bankers, the Rothschilds, pub- 
lished a letter in a newspaper of New York, owned and 
controlled by a man who is an alien at heart, even if he 
does hold naturalization papers, in which they said that 
if we did not yield on Venezuela they would not lend us 
money. Let me say to those gentlemen and their allies 
that the American people may have their faults, but they 
are not for sale. They cannot be bought, and they cannot 
be bullied, and they have stood firm. And what is the 
result ? Parliament has met. We said — now, mark what 
we claimed ! — " This concerns us, and we claim the right 
to intervene for our own safety." We said : " The Monroe 
Doctrine applies to it." Parliament met, and the Queen's 
speech said that it welcomed the cooperation of the United 
States ; in other words, admitted our right to intervene. 
Lord Rosebery, Sir William Harcourt, Mr. Chamberlain, 
and Mr. Balfour, all made public admission in Parliament 
and elsewhere that they fully conceded the validity of 



REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION. 277 

the Monroe Doctrine. I tbink I should be content to 
stand on the speech made by Sir William Harcourt in 
the House of Commons as an exposition of the validity 
of the Monroe Doctrine and the fairness of the American 
people. 

After England has conceded the justice of our conten- 
tions, is it worth while for Americans to argue that we 
were wrong? 

We did not go into this business to humiliate anybody. 
We have no exultation to express. We have won our 
case. The rest of the settlement, which is sure to come, 
is but a detail. The principle has been vindicated. We 
are content. And let me say to you now that no such 
act for peace has been performed by this country since 
the rebellion fell at Appomattox, as the position — the 
firm, dignified position — taken by the American people 
on this question. England understands us better. She 
has learned more about us in six months than she had 
learned before in half a century. There will be a better 
understanding between the two great nations than ever 
before. She has listened too long to the voices that mis- 
represent America, and now she has heard from the real 
America. And England respects the men who love their 
country. You never find an Englishman who does not 
believe in England against all the world, and I wish that 
some people here would imitate that part of the English 
example. 

The other question that came before us was Cuba. 
On that I wish to express myself with great precision, 
and I have written a few lines. I will ask your patience 
while I read them. 

" For myself I cannot doubt that in the interest of both 
parties, Cuba and Spain, and in the interest of humanity 



278 KEPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION. 

also, the contest should be closed. This is my judgment 
on the facts, so far as known to me. Cuba must be saved 
from its bloody delii'ium, or little will be left for the final 
conqueror. Nor can the enlightened mind fail to see 
that the Spanish power on this island is an anachronism. 
The day of European colonies has passed, at least in this 
hemisphere, where the rights of man were first proclaimed 
and self-government first organized." 

To-morrow morning you will read in one paper in Bos- 
ton, and perhaps in one in New York, that that is the 
utterance of a jingo ; that I am a wanton, noisy demagogue, 
who goes about needlessly wounding the feelings of a 
country with whom we maintain friendly relations. 

Gentlemen, I will set no traps for the feet of the un- 
wary. Those words that I read to you were the words of 
Charles Sumner, speaking to a Republican Convention. 
They are the words of Charles Sumner speaking to a 
Massachusetts Republican Convention in 1869, as I now 
speak to you. On that statement, I am content to stand. 

At that time the insurrection in Cuba had only lasted 
a year. It was confined to the extreme eastern end of 
the island. Sumner did not think the facts warranted 
the recognition of belligerency, although he said that men 
might easily differ. But there was one fact, he said, 
which controlled him entirely as against the recognition 
of belligerency, and that was that human slavery existed 
in Cuba, and with his feelings he could not support grant- 
ing belligerency to a people who held slaves. 

But even then, with that great obstacle, long since 
cleared away, before him, even then he said he hoped the 
United States might use its good offices to bring that ter- 
rible war to an end. 

What I have read there as the utterance of Charles Sum- 



REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION. 279 

ner is the position of my honored colleague and friend. 
He has expressed in the Senate his deep sympathy with 
the Cubans. He has stated that he preferred and had 
paired in favor of the Cameron resolution, which is a resolu- 
tion exactly carrying out the idea of our resolutions to-day, 
that we should use our good offices to obtain the recogni- 
tion of Cuba's independence. Like Sumner, he does not 
feel, as I feel, that the fact of belligerency is established. 

I agree with him in his sympathy with Cuba. I agree 
with him in the great principle that is at stake. I agree 
with him that the resolution which he prefers is much 
the best. It is now on its road to passage in the House. 
I was willing to vote even for the House resolution rather 
than get no expression at all. He was not, and people at 
home have busied themselves in portraying a difference 
between my colleague and myself. No such difference 
exists. Please God, none ever will. He is not only my 
colleague, but my friend. He is not present here to-day, 
and I can say to you of him, what you all know, that he 
is giving now, as he has always given, a pure and honor- 
able life, great abilities, great scholarship, to the service 
of humanity and of America. Ever since I had the high 
honor to sit beside him in the Senate he has been the 
most considerate of colleagues, the kindest of friends. 
We are in absolute harmony on every question of prin- 
ciple that faces the nation to-day. I trust you will pardon 
so much of personal explanation, but misrepresentations 
have been made which I desire to correct once and for all. 

There is Cuba, there it lies, that great island, athwart 
the Gulf, right in the pathway of our coastwise commerce, 
commanding the entrance to the Nicaragua Canal. If 
she was free, her markets would be ours. We take ninety 
per cent of all her products. She takes scarcely any- 



280 REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION. 

thing from us, owing to the Spanish laws, but that mar- 
ket would be ours if she were free. The control of the 
Gulf would be removed from all possibility of danger if 
she were free. She would be our ally. She would have 
to rely on us for support. That is the material view, the 
money view, the pecuniary view. 

Look on the other side, on the broader, on the better 
side. There in Cuba men have been fighting for their 
liberties with short intervals since 1825. They have been 
struggling to get free from Spain. Let me tell you, it does 
not, in my judgment, lie in American mouths to utter any- 
thing but sympathy for a colony struggling for independ- 
ence. It is no answer to say to me that they cannot set 
up a government, if they win, as good as our govern- 
ment. They will set up a better one than Spain gives 
them, and it will be an advance on the highway of civili- 
zation. They are fighting for their liberty. My sympathies 
are with them. I think that, as Edward Everett said, 
Cuba is an American question. We cannot shirk it, if 
we are going to be a great nation and take a great nation's 
responsibilities. And that is the whole of the Cuban 
question to-day. 

Look at these two questions for a moment, one involving 
aggressions on our rights — on rights which we believe 
with great unanimity concern deeply the peace and safety 
of the United States — while the other involves a case of 
humanity, as I consider it. I have formed the opinions 
which I have expressed on those questions by a very care- 
ful study of all the facts and circumstances for considerably 
more than a year. 

But I did not rest there; I have looked also to see what 
the traditions and the history of Massachusetts had to say 
to me where questions involving the rights of my country, 



REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION. 281 

and others as I believed Involving the interests of humanity 
right here at our threshold, were at stake. 

The first public man I ever saw, when I was a mere 
child in my father's house, was Charles Sumner. The first 
voice I ever heard speak on public affairs was his, and he 
was pleading the rights of humanity. Even a child could 
understand that. He bore stripes for what he believed, and 
you could not turn him from his great struggle for the 
black man by telling him that the negro could not make as 
good a government as the Anglo-Saxon. 

Go back a little further. There is Daniel Webster, 
Secretary of State, declaring to the Austrian representa- 
tive that every people struggling for freedom had the 
sympathy of the people of the United States ! They sent 
for Kossuth, and brought him out here in a man-of-war. 
We are told to-day that we are too rough in our utter- 
ances about Spain. But it was Daniel Webster who said 
in his letter to Hiilsemann : " The great Republic controls 
an area beside which the possessions of the House of 
Hapsburg are but a patch on the earth's surface." It was 
the same Daniel Webster who stood in the Congress thirty 
years before and pleaded the cause of the Greeks battling 
for their liberties, while he denounced Turkey in those 
rollins: sentences of which he alone was master. 

Go back a little further. A British ship had taken some 
of our seamen out of an American ship, and the President 
had asked for measures to resist the outrage. John Quincy 
Adams was one of the Senators from Massachusetts. The 
President was not of his party ; I am sure that the Presi- 
dent's policy was not of his choosing. He did not like it, 
but he stood up in his place in the Senate and said that, in 
the presence of a controversy with a foreign government, 
when " the President has recommended this measure on 



282 REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION. 

his high responsibility, I would not deliberate — I would 
act ! " 

That was the voice of Massachusetts then. Those are 
the lessons I read in the lives of three of my great prede- 
cessors. 

Let us go a little further and see what more we can 
learn in Massachusetts history about the duties of her sons 
when the rights of the country and the rights of humanity 
are at stake. Go out with me into the streets of Boston ; 
go down to Faneuil Hall — it is a historic spot. Stop there 
in front of the picture which hangs on those walls of the 
second Massachusetts President. To those silent lips put 
the question : " Do you think we should sustain the 
Monroe Doctrine ? " 

Ask it of John Quincy Adams. What do you think 
would be his reply ? He formulated it. 

Go out again ; walk up into Dock Square. What is the 
statue you see there ? It is that of Sam Adams. Close by 
is the place where the first blood flowed in the Revolution. 
Hard by is the chamber where, in the gathering twilight, 
he faced the crown officers and said to them : " You must 
remove both regiments. If you can remove one you can 
remove both — both regiments or none." He looks forth 
over the harbor where the tea fell. Stop in front of that 
statue and put to it the question : " When the rights of 
your country are at stake, shall you resist or shall you 
yield ? " If you touched those bronze lips with the fire of 
speech, what do you think they would say ? They never 
said " Yield " in their life ! 

We are all agreed about Sam Adams to-day. Do you 
think he did n't have his critics ? Eleven hundred of them 
sailed out to Halifax with Lord Howe. As they sailed 
out of the harbor George Washington rode in at the other 



REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION. 283 

end of the town, and we have put up a statue to him also. 
It is down there in the Public Garden — the statue of the 
man who broke the empire of England and laid the foun- 
dations of a mightier empire here. 

Close by is the statue of Charles Sumner, and the 
battle of his life was for human rights. A little farther 
away is the statue of William Lloyd Garrison. He was 
mobbed in the streets of Boston ! Mobbed, and for what ? 
For pleading the rights of humanity, even if the skin that 
covered the humanity was black. There sits his statue 
in Commonwealth Avenue. I do not see the effigies of the 
men who mobbed him. 

Go up the hill ; take one more look. There is an un- 
finished monument in front of the State House, opposite 
the steps where John A. Andrew sent the soldiers off to 
the war. There is an unfinished monument ! Turn now 
to your Harvard biographies, read there the letters of the 
first colonel of the first Massachusetts black regiment, 
and they will tell you of the prejudice, of the obloquy, of 
all he had to encounter while he was raising that regi- 
ment. It was not because he was fighting for the Union ; 
it was because, in addition to fighting for the Union, he 
was trying to help a race to freedom by proving to all 
mankind that they deserved their freedom because they 
could fight for it. That is what he was meeting obloquy, 
reproach, and prejudice for, and he went off with his 
black troops, and he fell there at Fort Wagner; and 
slavery, in its ferociousness, even on its death-bed, cried 
out : " Bury him with his niggers " — one of the noblest 
epitaphs ever uttered over man. And now Boston is rais- 
ing a statue to his memory, and there, carved by the chisel 
of the greatest of living sculptors, Robert Shaw and his 
black soldiers will ride together, forever ride ! 



284 REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION. 

Those are the memories, those are the traditions, such 
is the inspiration and such the lesson that I find in Massa- 
chusetts history. 

I leave the history ; I will come to to-day. I will come to 
you, voices of the present. I will come to you — to you 
who followed the gleaming flag of the republic through 
four years of civil war and brought back the white flag 
of Massachusetts, all the whiter because it was torn with 
shot and black with smoke. 

I turn to you, the brothers and the sons of those men ; 
to you, heirs of the great Republican heritage of union 
and freedom ; to you, within the borders of whose Com- 
monwealth lie guarded Concord, Lexington, and Bunker 
Hill ; to you, children of the Pilgrim and the Puritan ; to 
you, citizens of the great republic ! To you I come and 
ask the same counsel that I asked from the history of the 
old State, and your answer, I know, will be the same. 

Gentlemen, I have trespassed too far upon your time 
already. I have spoken because I wished to speak to you, 
the representatives of the party to whom I owe everything 
that I have in public life, and I have been speaking to 
you on these questions because they lie very near my heart. 
They seem to me to involve a very great principle. 

No one has a greater admiration than I for the marvel- 
ous achievements of the American people in the last cen- 
tury, for the conquest of this mighty continent, for all the 
material welfare which has sprung up as if by magic from 
the Atlantic to the Pacific. Our business enterprise, our 
business intelligence, our business activity, are among the 
glories of the republic. I have labored ever since I have 
been in public life to advance by every means in my power 
every measure that makes for the business interests of the 
country. No one values their importance more highly 



REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION. 285 

than I. So long as I may continue in public life you may 
count on me to make all the best endeavor that my ability 
will permit on every business question, from the great 
questions of sound money and a proper tariff down through 
the whole range. But, gentlemen, I have seen it constantly 
stated — and this is the point I wish to make — that we 
must not deal with anything but business questions. 

Now, there is a great deal more than that in the life of 
every great nation. There is patriotism, love of country, 
pride of race, courage, manliness, the things which money 
cannot make and which money cannot buy. The posses- 
sion of those qualities in the one, the lack of them in the 
other, made the Romans praetors and the Greeks barbers. 
That which ruined Rome was the loss of those great qual- 
ities. The Empire fell because the Romans lost the great 
national aspirations which had made Rome. When every- 
thing is money, and there is no other standard to try every 
question by, decadence has begun, the hour of the down- 
fall is approaching. Thank Heaven, it is far distant from 
the American people. There is no more patriotic people 
on earth than the people of the United States, none more 
patriotic than the people of Massachusetts, none more 
patriotic than the great body of the people of Boston, 
just as patriotic to-day as when the little three-hilled town 
faced the British Empire in arms. There is no change. 
The great qualities are all there. 

But you know and I know that there are certain quar- 
ters where it is the fashion to sneer at patriotism, and to 
write patriotism and Americanism between inverted com- 
mas. You know that practice prevails, and that a man is 
said to be a demagogue and talking buncombe and all 
that because he alludes to patriotism, and that the only 
true patriots are those who never speak of it but carry it 



286 REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION. 

about locked up in the silent recesses of their hearts. 
Why, where would that argument lead you ? Are we to 
stop reading and preaching from the gospels because they 
are nineteen hundred years old and men have drawn com- 
fort and hope and consolation from them for all that time ? 
Are we to stop reading and preaching from them because 
all men are agreed about the gospels ? I think it is not 
only well to have patriotism ; I think it is well occasion- 
ally to talk about it. 

I for one do not propose, in view of some of the objec- 
tions that have been made to the attitude of Congress and 
of the President and of the American people, to remain 
silent. You may call it sentiment or passion or what 
you will, but love of country is one of the great moving 
causes of national life. When we look at that flag, what 
is it that makes our hearts throb ? If you see it in a for- 
eign land, as I did last summer, after months of separa- 
tion, what is it that makes your throat choke and your 
eyes get damp ? Is it because a great many men have 
made money under it ? I believe that that flag is a great 
deal more than the sign of a successful national shop, 
never to be unfurled for fear that the trader on the oppo- 
site side of the way may have his feelings ruffled ; I think 
it is a great deal more than that. And when I look 
at it, I do not see and you do not see there the graven 
image of the dollar ; you do not read there the motto of 
the epicure, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." 
No; you read on that flag the old Latin motto, "Per 
aspera ad astra," — through toil and conflict to the stars. 

You do not see the dollar on it. But when you look, 
and your heart swells within you as you look, the memo- 
ries that come are very different. If you see any faces 
there, they are the faces of Washington and his Continen- 



REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION. 287 

tals behind him, marching from defeat at Long Island to 
victory at Trenton, to misery at Valley Forge, to final 
triumph at Yorktown. Look again, and we all see the 
face of Lincoln. The mighty host are there of the men 
who have lived for their country and given their lives for 
their country, and labored for it, each in his separate way, 
and believed in it and loved it. They are all there, from 
the great chiefs to the boys who fell in Baltimore. That 
is what I see, that is what you see. That is why we love 
it, because it means this great country and all the people. 
It means all the struggles and sufferings we have gone 
through, all our hopes, all our aspirations. It means that 
we are a great nation and intend to take a nation's part in 
the family of nations. It means that we are the guardians 
of this Western Hemisphere and will not have it rashly 
invaded. It means the one successful experiment of repre- 
sentative democracy. It means victorious democracy. That 
is what it means, and that is what I see there and that is 
what you see there. And, much as I care for business and 
economic questions, I never will admit that they are all, or 
that the duty of a public man ceases with them. There are 
other questions that must be dealt with also. I never will 
admit that that beloved flag is to me merely the symbol of 
a land where I can live in rich content and make money. 
No ; I see it as the American poet saw it : — 

And fixed as yonder orb divine 
That saw thy bannered blaze unfurled, 

Shall thy proud stars resplendent shine 
The guard and glory of the world. 



SPEECH AT THE ALUMNI DINNER. 

HARVARD COMMENCEMENT, JUNE, 1S96. 



SPEECH AT THE ALUMNI DINNER. 
Harvard Commencement, June, 1896. 



I THANK you for this greeting, which indicates that you 
agree with me in the position I have lately taken at St. 
Louis. There was never any doubt as to the position of 
the great Republican party, to which I belong, upon the 
money question, but there was a doubt as to whether they 
would declare that position without reserve. With the 
delegates from our dear old State, and with the leaders 
of other states, I had a share in framing the declaration 
of the party upon the money question, and we made it so 
plain and so honest that no man can misinterpret it. I 
am glad that my action in this respect meets with your 
approval. Praise and blame often come to a public man 
from the same quarter at not remote intervals. But no 
public man can afford to shape his course from desire of 
the one or dread of the other. There is only one absolute 
master whom I recognize, and that is my own conviction 
of what is right. There is only one approval that is abso- 
lutely essential to me, and that is the approval of my own 
conscience. If I may borrow the words of Descartes, " I 
early made up my mind that, in emergencies which de- 
manded action, I would act promptly and to the best of 
my judgment, and would then abide the result without 
repenting." 

But, Mr. President, I did not rise to speak of myself 



292 SPEECH AT THE ALUMNI DINNER. 

or of politics. I am a member of the Class which celebrates 
to-day the twenty -fifth anniversary of its graduation. On 
such an occasion there is much that is joyous, much which 
touches the tender chords of memory ; but yet, after all, 
the stones which mark the resting-place of the buried years 
lead us most naturally to some serious reflections. I was 
told last night at my Class dinner, by one speaking with 
authority, that the old college of our day was utterly gone. 
We came as a class just at the parting of the ways. We 
were for two years under the old system and for two years 
under the new. We have watched with pride the vast 
growth of Harvard since we left Cambridge. We realize 
that the class which graduates to-day is nearly as large 
as the entire college which we knew. We understand that 
a Faculty of ninety members can hardly sustain the work 
which in our time was performed by twenty. We have 
seen great endowments given to Harvard. We have seen 
new buildings spring up in all directions. We have beheld 
the old college change into the great university at the touch 
of the enchanter's wand. And yet, Mr. President, I should 
be grieved to think that the old college had entirely gone. 
The most brilliant of American journalists, a graduate of 
Harvard, is reported to have said, when he bought the 
New York " Sun," that he threw away everything except 
the name. I should be sorry to think that this policy had 
been pursued at Harvard. There were some qualities 
about the old college which I trust will never die, but 
will always remain as they were then, — characteristic of 
Harvard. 

Let me very briefly suggest what I mean. At the risk 
of being thought an extreme and moss-grown conservative, 
I will mention that during the four years of my Class in 
college we won three out of four university boat-races, 



SPEECH AT THE ALUMNI DINNER. 293 

besides sending a crew to England. We won all tlie base- 
ball matches there were to win. I know that the reply to 
this is that these things are only athletics. So be it. I 
happen to be one of those, Mr. President, who believe pro- 
foundly in athletic contests. The time given to athletic 
contests and the injuries incurred on the playing-field are 
part of the price which the English-speaking race has paid 
for being world-conquerors. 

But there is another side to athletic victories. They are 
the manifestation and evidence of a spirit which is all- 
important. I was asked last spring to come out here and 
speak to the boys on football. I replied that I knew little 
of football, and was certainly not an expert at the game. 
" We do not want you to talk about football," was the 
answer ; " we want you to speak on the spirit of victory." 
That is the spirit which existed in the old college, — the 
spirit of victory. It is but another phrase for what the phi- 
losopher dealing with nations calls social efficiency. It is 
the spirit which subordinates the individual to the group, 
and which enables that groui?, whether it be a college or 
a nation, to achieve great results and attain to high ideals. 
Individualism carried to its last extreme has made Poland 
a geographical expression. Social efficiency has made the 
English-speaking people the conquering race of modern 
times. It is that spirit of victory, that loyalty to a name, 
an idea, a sentiment, that capacity for acting together, that 
enthusiasm which always existed in the old college, which 
I would see preserved in the Harvard of to-day. A nation 
must have that spirit to succeed in the world, and a colleo-e 
must have that spirit to succeed in the nation. I want Har- 
vard to play the part which belongs to her in the great 
drama of American life. Therefore I want her to be filled 
with the spirit of victory. 



294 SPEECH AT THE ALUMNI DINNER. 

The president has said that there are many evils, many 
shortcomings, in our polities. So there are. No one knows 
it so well as a man in public life. But let us not rail at 
them. Let us go down into the dust and heat and try to 
cure them. And, above all, do not let us permit the short- 
comings to obscure the great triumphs of the century. It 
is well to remember what we have done as a nation. They 
may call us money-makers, shopkeepers, if you will, but 
the American people have made the greatest sacrifices to 
a sentiment, to union and to freedom, that any people on 
earth can show. Here in the United States is the greatest 
field in the world for human endeavor and for human 
aspiration. Very early I took to my heart the words of 
Emerson, the greatest intellect, perhaps, that Harvard has 
upon her i-oll. It was he who said, " Let the passion for 
America cast out the passion for Europe." I would have 
the passion for America enter into every man's soul. This 
great democracy is moving onward to its great destiny. 
Woe to the men or to the nations who try to bar its im- 
perial march. Before us lie great problems and great 
possibilities. In the future of the United States I want 
Harvard to be in the forefront. I want her to wield the 
influence and take the part to which her traditions and her 
past, to which all she is and all she hopes to be, entitle 
her. 



INTERVENTION IN CUBA. 

SPEECH IN THE SENATE, APRIL 13, 1898. 



INTERVENTION IN CUBA. 



The Senate having under consideration the joint resolution (S. R. 
149) for the recognition of the independence of the people of Cuba, 
demanding that the Government of Spain relinquish its authority and 
government in the Island of Cuba, and to withdraw its land and naval 
forces from Cuba and Cuban waters, and directing the President of 
the United States to use the land and naval forces of the United 
States to carry these resolutions into effect — 

Mr. Lodge said : — 

Mr. President : During the entire session, since the 
1st of December, and more especially since the destruc- 
tion of the Maine fell with a great shock upon the people 
of the United States, I have felt it my duty as a member 
of the Committee on Foreign Relations, to which I have 
the honor to belong, to maintain an absolute silence on 
all matters connected with the questions pending between 
this country and Spain. I have broken through that rule 
on but one occasion, and that was when I counseled in 
this Chamber silence and patience until we could hear the 
report of the court of inquiry. Neither by speech here 
nor by interview or publication elsewhere have I broken 
the rule which I imposed upon myself. 

But, Mr. President, the moment has now come when 
the committee to which I belong has made its report, and 
I feel it to be my duty to state the reasons which govern 
me and control my vote at this great crisis, and to try to 
make them plain to the people whom I have the very high 
honor to represent. 



298 INTERVENTION IN CUBA. 

Mr. President, I think there is one point on which all 
men in this country are agreed to-day, no matter how they 
may differ on one proposition or another, and that agree- 
ment is that this situation must end. We cannot go on 
indefinitely with this strain, this suspense, and this un- 
certainty, this tottering upon the verge of war. It is kill- 
ing to business. It is ruinous to our people in a thousand 
ways. It is discreditable to our government and our 
country. If we are not to take action in regard to Cuba 
in order to bring this situation to an end, then let us stand 
up in the face of the world and say that we wash our 
hands of the whole affair ; let us say that we will not 
intervene to save the starving, to put an end to hos- 
tilities, and that we will turn the case of the Maine 
over to a referee. If we are not prepared to do that, 
then let us act the other way. But whatever happens, 
let us end this state of unendurable suspense. That, I 
believe, Mr. President, is the one great desire of the entire 
country. 

The President has submitted this momentous question 
to the Congress of the United States. In his hands are 
placed by the Constitution all the diplomatic functions of 
the government. He alone can address foreign powers ; 
he alone can carry on correspondence through his minis- 
ters and officers. Congress has no diplomatic functions 
whatever. The President has told us that diplomacy is 
exhausted, and he has handed the case over to us. What 
power have we got? We have but one, Mr. President. 
The Constitution gives to Congress — I mean to both 
Houses constituting the entire Congress — but one power 
in relation to foreign countries, — the last great weapon in 
the armory of nations, the war power. 

When a President of the United States says to Con- 



INTERVENTION IN CUBA. 299 

gress, as President McKinley has said, that he can go no 
further with diplomacy in a controversy with a foreign 
nation, and remits that question to the Congress of the 
United States, he invites them to use the only weapon 
they possess. The mere fact of remitting the question to 
Congress is invoking Congress to use the most awful 
power which the Constitution has conferred upon it. 

That is the situation in which we stand to-day, Mr. 
President. We here can open no new negotiations with 
Madrid ; we can enter on no correspondence with any 
other nation on the face of the earth. All that we can 
do is to exercise tlie one great power of peace or war. 
The President has asked us to exert that power, and in a 
certain way. He has invited us to exercise it by clothing 
him with the power to intervene by force of arms in order 
to produce certain results. 

My deep desire, Mr. President, and all the small influ- 
ence that I may possess, has been given throughout to the 
one object of sustaining the President of the United States 
and seeking in every possible way to preserve unity be- 
tween the Congress and the Executive ; for I believe, when 
we are face to face with a foreign power, that there is 
one duty that overrides all others, higher than politics 
and higher than everything else, and that is that the 
Congress and the people and the Executive of the United 
States should stand absolutely together. And now, Mr. 
President, when the President comes to Congress and 
invokes our aid in a controversy with a foreign country, 
and asks us to give him power to intervene, I desire that 
that great power of war should be given to him in that 
way. 

I am against a declaration of war, but I favor giving 
the President the power to intervene. I am against recog- 



300 INTERVENTION IN CUBA. 

nizing the government of the insurgent republic because 
the President of the United States, in his high responsi- 
bility, has advised Congress strongly against it. I will 
not myself part from that unity which I consider so 
much more important than aught else, and differ on that 
point. 

I do not care to argue here the question of recognizing 
or not recognizing the government of the insurgents. 
Powerful arguments can be made both ways. We have 
heard one in the message of the President ; we have heard 
another to-day from the Senator from Ohio [Mr. Foraker] 
on the other side. We heard but yesterday in the Foreign 
Relations Committee the advice of General Lee, who has 
conferred such honor upon the United States by the man- 
ner in which he has represented this country at Havana, 
and his advice is that we should not recognize the insur- 
gent government. 

Therefore, Mr. President, without arguing that point 
further, I beg to say that I stand with the majority of the 
committee and with the President of the United States in 
opposing the recognition of the insurgent government at 
this time. It can be done, if necessary, at any moment. 
The President has nothing to do but to ask Mr. Palma to 
the White House, and the Cuban Republic stands up 
erect and recognized. We may safely trust that power to 
the President. 

I said, sir, that the President has asked us for inter- 
vention. The committee have given it to him. It was 
not the form of resolution which I personally preferred. 
I voted for another in the committee. But, Mr. Presi- 
dent, what I desired more than any special form of reso- 
lution was the unity of action of the Government of the 
United States in the crisis to which we have arrived. 



INTERVENTION IN CUBA. 301 

Therefore I voted to bring these resohitions into the Sen- 
ate ; voted to do it with all the other members of the 
committee. Nor do I think, Mr. President, that there is 
much use in differing about the words in which we order 
intervention. We have been wandering too long as a 
country amid the delusions and snares of diplomacy. Let 
us now come out into the clear light of day and look facts 
squarely in the face. 

When we authorize the President to intervene and use 
the Army and Navy of the United States, whether we do 
it in the language of the message, or in the language of 
the House of Representatives, or in the language of the 
Senate resolution, we create a state of war. Let us not 
deceive ourselves at this solemn hour. Forms of words 
are of but little moment in a crisis like this. It is the 
great central fact that concerns the people to-day. The 
President has asked us to mail his arm to strike with 
the Army and the Navy of the United States ; to author- 
ize him to go down into Cuba and enforce the pacifi- 
cation of the island. He has asked us to authorize him 
to set up a government there which shall be a stable 
government, and a government "capable of observing 
international obligations." I quote the President's own 
words. 

What kind of government can alone observe inter- 
national obligations ? Only an independent government, 
Mr. President. Therefore the President of the United 
States asks us to authorize him to use the Army and the 
Navy to stop the fighting in Cuba and establish an inde- 
pendent government in that island. How can there be an 
independent government in Cuba while Spain is there ? 
It is an impossibility. The recommendations of the mes- 
sage mean that Spain must leave that island, and I, for 



302 INTERVENTION IN CUBA. 

one, think that if that is the purpose of the message, as it 
clearly is, there is no harm and much good in telling the 
truth. If we intervene, we do not go there to take Gomez 
by the throat and make him stop fighting. We go there 
to put Spain out of that island, for in no other way can 
we create a government capable of observing its inter- 
national obligations. 

The President has asked Congress to sustain him in 
that policy in its broad general lines. As I have sustained 
him hitherto in every step that he has taken, so far as 
my very humble influence went, I sustain him now when 
he asks us to give him this last great power of the Consti- 
tution. Therefore, Mr. President, when we vote to give 
the President of the United States power to intervene in 
the affairs of another country with the Army and Navy 
of the United States, we clothe him with the war power, 
and we had better face that great responsibility and look 
it in the eye like men, and not attempt to shrink from 
what it means and try feebly to pretend that it is not 
there. 

No man can be more averse to war than I, no one can 
dread more than I any act which will plunge the country 
into war. Mr. President, such measures as I have voted 
for in past years in the Senate, since the Cuban crisis has 
been upon the country, I have supported not merely be- 
cause I thought they made for the interests of the insur- 
gents, with whom I sympathize in the strongest possible 
manner, because they are fighting for freedom, but be- 
cause I thought then, as I think now, that they were the 
true road to the preservation of peace. 

If two years ago we had recognized the belligerency of 
the Cuban insurgents they would have been able to raise 
money, to hoist a flag at sea, and open a port ; they would 



INTERVENTION IN CUBA. 303 

then have won their independence, in my judgment, and 
we never should have been involved. If one year ago last 
January we had recognized their independence, again 
they would have been able to raise money, to open a port, 
and to have established their independence themselves. 
I so believed then ; I so believe now. Both those propo- 
sitions passed by the Senate of the United States were 
smothered elsewhere by a wisdom which I shall not ques- 
tion ; but I think that each of those refusals to act kept 
alive the Cuban difficulty, and the longer it was kept alive 
the nearer and the surer war came to us. 

I have also for many years advocated a powerful navy 
and strong coast defenses. I have advocated them be- 
cause I believed that in them was the great guaranty of 
peace. Mr. President, if we had to-day, as we ought to 
have, twenty battleships and a hundred torpedo boats, 
there never would have been a Cuban question ; we should 
have been so ready and so strong that we could have laid 
our hands on the shoulder of Spain and said, " You must 
stop " ; and the contest would have been so hopeless that 
it never would have been entered upon. Thousands of 
men who fill graves in Cuba to-day, tortured into them by 
starvation, would be alive, and the Maine would still ride 
the seas. But, Mr. President, more conservative principles 
prevailed and we have not the large navy we ought to 
have. 

I believe in preparation for war as Washington advo- 
cated it ; I believe in a rigid exclusion from America of 
any European extension, which was the great doctrine of 
the generation which followed Washington. These prin- 
ciples have been scoffed at as the doctrine of "jingoes." 
Ah, Mr. President, as Coleridge says, " Old faiths often 
become new heresies." If we had clung to the old faiths, 



304 INTERVENTION IN CUBA. 

if we had kept our navy and our defenses as Washington 
advised, if we had looked a little further ahead into what 
the Monroe Doctrine meant, we should not be standing on 
the verge of war to-day. We failed, as I believe, in cer- 
tain obvious duties, and the inexorable law of compensa- 
tion has brought the inevitable penalty to our doors. 

Mr. President, we are not in this crisis by an accident. 
We have not been brought here by chance or by clamorous 
politicians or by yellow journals. We are face to face 
with Spain to-day in the fulfillment of a great movement 
which has run through the centuries. Out of the war 
which Spain wages, and the manner in which she wages it, 
have come starvation and the destruction of the Maine. 
The war comes out of Spanish misgovernment and Span- 
ish corruption. That corruption is not of yesterday. It 
is very, very old. It has cost Spain all her continental 
colonies. It existed two hundred years ago. You can 
see it all portrayed in that beautiful picture of character 
and manners which Le Sage drew in the history of Gil 
Bias of Santillane. Spain was corrupt then ; it was mis- 
governed then ; and out of it has come to-day the Cuban 
war. 

Even at this moment the corruption which Le Sage 
described is worse than ever. Spain is on her death-bed, 
buried in debt, bleeding at every vein from the revolutions 
in her colonies, and her officers and officials rob her, dying, 
as she is, in the eyes of the world. We asked General 
Lee yesterday when he was before us if the $600,000 said 
to have been appropriated by Spain for the relief of the 
reconcentrados would reach them or would be spent on 
the Spanish soldiers, — for they are starving, too, — and 
his reply was, " It will never reach either of them ; the 
officials will take it all on the way." That is what is going 



INTERVENTION IN CUBA. 305 

on in Spain, just as it was when Gil Bias bad his adven- 
tures. That is why Cuba has rebelled. 

Mr. President, this long process of Spanish decay began 
far back, three hundred years ago, and the vast empire of 
Charles V has been dying through all these centuries. 
The men who first struck at it, even in its pitch of pride, 
were the men of the dikes and the marshes of Holland. 
The men who next struck it and brought it down were the 
men of English blood, the English seamen of the sixteenth 
century. They fought it by an instinct, because it stood 
for all that meant oppression, bigotry, cruelty, and terror. 
Those men of Holland and England fought it because they 
stood for the principles of liberty and of free government. 

In our veins runs the blood of Holland and the blood of 
Eno-land. If after all the centuries it comes to us, much 
as we pray to avert it, to meet Spain face to face in war, 
it is because we are there in obedience to a greater move- 
ment than any man can hope to control. We are there 
because we represent the spirit of liberty and the spirit of 
the new time, and Spain is over against us because she 
is mediaBval, cruel, dying. We are not there by chance. 
We are there because we stand now for just the same 
principles for which the men stood who followed William 
the Silent and sailed with Drake ; and if this terrible 
thing — this awful curse of war — must come upon us, 
then we can only repeat with Lincoln the words of the 
second inaugural, " The judgments of the Lord are true 
and righteous altogether." 

Mr. President, we have exhausted the resources of 
diplomacy ; we have made every effort that could be made. 
The President has been patient, more than i>atient. He 
has used every possible effort to secure a settlement at 
once honorable to the country and in the interest of free- 



306 INTERVENTION IN CUBA. 

dom and humanity. Every effort that he has made has 
failed, and, so saying, he has committed the question 
to us. 

We are told that Spain has recalled the concentration 
edict. We were told that last November, and yet the 
people have been in the pens dying ever since. We were 
told that Weyler's edict had been revoked then, and yet 
starvation has gone on. We hear of another proclama- 
tion for another revocation of that same edict which had 
been already revoked, and the people are dying in Havana 
now and in other towns, and the President himself con- 
cludes his message with a request for money to feed the 
starving. 

What does the Spanish order of 1600,000 amount to ? 
It is a fraud — an absolute fraud. It is a fraud like their 
armistice, which invites the insurgents to come in and lay 
down their arms. There is nothing in it at all but baffling 
snares, and every man who has been in the Island of Cuba 
and comes before the Committee on Foreign Relations 
swears to the same thing. 

Mr. President, we cannot, in my opinion, allow that fire 
to burn longer at our doors. We can no longer permit 
those people to starve to death, brought to that hideous 
torture by a war measure of Spain. We cannot longer 
suffer our commerce to be ruined, our property destroyed, 
our business to be darkened and depressed. Spain has 
refused every valid suggestion that would bring any solu- 
tion, and she has given us a stone where we have asked for 
bread. 

We cannot accept, Mr. President, conditions of peace 
which would degrade us in the eyes of the world, and, 
what is infinitely more important, in our own eyes. If 
we were to do so, we should bring evils in the train of 



INTERVENTION IN CUBA. 307 

such a yielding which no man can estimate. We should 
heap wars upon the generations yet unborn which no man 
can contemplate without a shudder, for we should give 
to the world an invitation to step into the Western Hem- 
isphere and do anything they please to the people of the 
United States. 

There are some things, Mr. President, horrible as war 
is, worse than war and better than money. A nation's 
honor is one thing, and her duty to humanity is another. 

They say that they are not our own people. They are 
just outside the walls of the house we call our own. Ah, 
Mr. President, when they say to me, " Are you your 
brother's keeper ? " I respond, " Yes ; we are the keeper 
of those people in Cuba," for we announced fifty years ago 
to the whole world that the Cuban question was an Amer- 
ican question. We drew a ring fence around that island, 
and we told the people of the earth that no one should 
interfere there except ourselves. Plere we stand, shutting 
out every other nation and allowing Spain to butcher 
those people after her own fashion. There is a great 
responsibility. We cannot escape it, and if we fail to 
meet it we shall pay the awful price for our failure, as 
nations always do. 

The sentiment of the American people in my judgment 
is for peace. We are essentially a peace-loving, peace- 
cherishing people. But there is a sentiment in the Amer- 
ican people that is above and beyond their love of peace. 
I mean among the great mass of our people whose eyes 
are not blinded by the glitter of too much wealth. Among 
those people there is a strong sentiment for peace always, 
but it can only be peace with honor. They cherish very 
deeply the honor of their country all the more, perhaps, if 
they have not many other possessions to cherish, — the 



308 INTERVENTION IN CUBA. 

pride in being an American is very dear to them, — and 
they do not want to see that name tarnished or brought 
to ignominy or dishonor. 

The sentiment of my own State and my own people I 
have known, and know now, is for peace. They do not 
wish to see this country phmged into an unnecessary war, 
but neither would they see the country degraded. They 
would not see it dragged in the dust before the eyes of 
the world. If they cannot have peace with honor, then 
they will meet war in a brave and noble spirit, as Massa- 
chusetts always has met her trials, from Concord to Bal- 
timore. 

If war must be, — I hope and pray that it may yet be 
avoided, — no nation ever went to war on higher grounds 
or from nobler or more disinterested motives. War is 
here, if it is here, by the act of Spain. We have grasped 
no man's territory. We have taken no man's property. 
We have invaded no man's rights. We do not ask their 
lands. We do not ask their money. We ask peace in 
that unhappy island — peace and freedom, not for our- 
selves, but for others. It is an unselfish, a pure, a noble 
demand ; and if war does come, then, Mr. President, we 
do not fear to meet it. We will meet it so that the curse 
of Spain shall never rest again on any part of the West- 

•r em Hemisphere. We do not want war; we would do 
anything in honor to avoid it ; but if it must come, it wiU 

I be a war that will prevent Spain from ever bringing mis- 
ery, death, and ruin to Cuba, and agitation, unhappiness, 

ji loss, and war to the United States. 

And now, Mr. President, what of the Maine ? I suppose 
a good argument can be made that that is a legal question ; 
that there are disputed facts ; that it does not do to get too 
excited about it ; but I am so sentimental, I am so merely 



INTERVENTION IN CUBA. 309 

human, that that ship is nearer my heart than anything 
else. Suppose she had gone down to her death in an 
English harbor, blown up as she was, carrying her men 
with her ; what do you think would have been the voice 
of England — the land of Nelson ? I believe if it had 
hajjpened in an English port England would have said, in 
a great and generous spirit, " We regard this with hor- 
ror ; we believe that it must have been an accident, but 
it happened in our harbor under our flag. If you think 
otherwise, name the reparation that you want." Such, 
Mr, President, I believe would have been the reply of 
England ; such I believe would have been our reply or 
that of any of the great Powers. 

Look now at Spain. She has done nothing but slander 
the officers and sailors of the Maine, both the dead and 
the living. Her ambassador to Rome said but a week ago 
to all Europe, in a published interview, that that ship went 
down because her captain neglected her and was not on 
board. Notorious as the sinking of the ship is the fact 
that Captain Sigsbee was there, and that he was the last 
man to leave is equally well known, and yet the Spanish 
ambassador to Rome tells that lying story to the world. 
Last Sunday the Spanish ambassador in London an- 
nounced also to all the world through the columns of the 
press that the Maine was blown up from inside because 
our officers neglected their duty, feasting on shore when 
they should have died at their posts. That is tyjiical of 
the Spanish answer, and it is a coarse insult. 

They agreed on their story that the ship was blown up 
by accident before they even looked at her hull. We 
have the evidence of Captain Sigsbee before our commit- 
tee as to the character of the examination which the Span- 
iards made — trivial, slight, careless, done for a form, to 



310 INTERVENTION IN CUBA. 

back up a story which they had already made up their 
minds to stand by and put forth. They have never even 
tried to prove that there were no mines in the harbor, and 
an accused man or nation who refuses to offer exculpatory 
evidence convicts himself. That has been the attitude of 
Spain — indifferent, insulting, ignoble — toward an awful 
disaster happening in her own harbor. 

Mr. Frye. Mr. President — 

The Vice-President. Does the Senator from Mas- 
sachusetts yield to the Senator from Maine ? 

Mr. Lodge. Certainly. 

Mr. Frye. Will the Senator from Massachusetts 
please add right here that the death of our sailors and the 
destruction of our ship, according to General Lee's testi- 
mony, was celebrated with banquets and champagne by 
the Spanish officers in Cuba .^ 

Mr. Lodge. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from 
Maine for recalling to me the testimony of General Lee 
on that point yesterday. Where so much has been told 
it is impossible to remember all. They rejoiced in Ha- 
vana, and they explained the explosion by throwing it 
upon our officers, slandering their character and denying 
their words. 

I have examined that testimony from beginning to end ; 
I have heard the evidence of Captain Sigsbee, of the tor- 
pedo experts of the Navy Department, and yesterday of 
the consul-general, Fitzhugh Lee. We know that that 
ship was anchored at a buoy never used for public ships 
of war, certainly not for many years ; we know that she 
was anchored there by a Spanish official pilot ; we know 
that the night she was blown up she had swung into a 
position where she had never ridden before, and the only 
position where her broadside commanded the fort ; we have 



INTERVENTION IN CUBA. 311 

the statement of General Lee and of Captain Sigsbee as 
to their profound belief ; we cannot put our hand upon 
the man who pressed the button, but we know that it was 
a submarine mine either put there for that special purpose 
or to defend the fortress, and Spain has never attempted 
to show that no mine was there. 

On those unquestioned facts every man has the right to 
make up his own mind. Every man is entitled to his own 
belief, and I state mine after fifty days of careful study 
and a consideration of every fact. I have no more doubt 
than that I am now standing in the Senate of the United 
States — that that ship was blown up by a government 
mine, fired by, or with the connivance of, Spanish officials. 
I do not say it was done by General Blanco. I exonerate 
him fully on the statement of General Lee. I do not say 
that it was done by the government itself ; but it could 
have been done only by experts, only by men in control of 
government mines, only by men who had their hands upon 
the government machinery. Others may reason from 
those facts as they please. To me they bear but one inter- 
pretation, and that is that the Maine went to her death 
by Spanish treachery in the harbor of Havana, and Span- 
iards exulted and feasted when the black deed was done. 

Mr. President, I suppose it may be urged that it is 
proper that we should negotiate and arbitrate ; but when- 
ever I think of that solution there comes to my mind the 
lines of Lowell, written at another period, a very dark 
time in this country — written in the homely New Eng- 
land dialect : — 

Ef I turn mad dogs loose, John, 

On your front-parlor stairs, 
Would it jest meet your views, John, 

To wait an' sue their heirs ? 



312 INTERVENTION IN CUBA. 

Ah, Mr. President, it does not seem to me that this is 
a case for nesfotiation. It would have been the case for a 
generous opponent to have put himself greatly in the right 
by his treatment of it, but it seems to me we cannot any 
more negotiate about it than a man can negotiate about 
an insult to his mother. What could we take if we did 
arbitrate ? Are we going to take money for those dead 
men of ours ? 

I suppose again that I am very impracticable and very 
sentimental, but the idea revolts me. At the close of the 
Civil War the great war governor of Massachusetts found 
his practice scattered, his small accumulations and savings 
gone, because he had given his time, as, indeed, he gave 
his life, to the service of the State and the country. It was 
known how much he had suffered in his practice and his 
purse, and there was a story circulated in the papers that 
his friends intended to make him collector of the port, 
the most highly paid office in the State of Massachusetts. 
The day that item of news appeared a friend of Governor 
Andrew met him and said to him, " Well, Governor, are 
you going to take the collectorship ? " He paused a mo- 
ment, then looked up suddenly and said, " I have stood 
for four years as high priest between the horns of the 
altar ; I have poured out upon it the best blood of Massa- 
chusetts ; I cannot take money for that." 

Mr. President, we cannot take money for the dead men 
of the Maine. There is only one reparation. There is only 
one monument to raise over that grave, and that is free 
Cuba and peace in that island. That is a worthy monu- 
ment, worthy of men who died under the flag they loved, — 
died, in the cold language of the law, "in the line of 
duty." 

They say we cannot go to war about the Maine. Per- 



INTERVENTION IN CUBA. 313 

haps not. We are told that it is an incident. So be it. It 
is the outgrowth of the conditions in Cuba ; it is the out- 
growth of that Spanish rule ; it is the outcome of that 
Spanish war, and it calls upon us to end the causes that 
made it possible. The men who were hurled from the sleep 
of life into the sleep of death call upon us from their graves 
to root out forever the causes which made their slaughter 
possible. 

We are told that we must not go to war on the narrow 
ground of revenge. Revenge is an ugly word, although 
Bacon tells us that it is nothing but wild justice. No, not 
revenge ; but we must have reparation for the Maine. We 
cannot as a nation belittle that case or refuse to demand 
a great and shining atonement for our dead sailors. If we 
allow that to drop aside, to pass away into an endless 
tangle of negotiation and law and discussion, we are lost 
to all sense of brotherhood ; we are lost to all love of 
kith and kin ; our uniform will no longer be an honor 
and a protection; it will be a disgrace and danger to 
wear it. 

Your men on your ships are sullen to-day because they 
think that the government is not behind them. There 
are mutterings among the men who wear your uniform 
because they think you have not striven to redress the 
awful slaughter of their comrades. You must maintain 
the honor of the uniform and of the flag under which the 
men died. Surely, there never was a more righteous 
cause than this for any nation to ask for justice. That 
o-io-antic murder, the last spasm of a corrupt and dying 
society, which carried down our ship and our men, cries 
aloud for justice. 

Mr. President, I care but little what form of words we 
adopt. I am ready to yield my opinions to those about me 



314 INTERVENTION IN CUBA. 

in Congress. Still more ready am I to defer to the wishes 
of the Executive, who stands and must stand at our head ; 
but I want now to arm that Executive with powers which 
shall enable him to bring peace to Cuba and secure exact 
justice for the Maine. 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

SPEECH IN THE SENATE, MARCH 7, I'JOO. 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 



The Secretary read the bill (S. 2355) in relation to the suppression 
of insurrection and to the government of the Philippine Islands, 
ceded by Spain to the United States by the treaty concluded at Paris 
on the 10th day of December, 1898, reported from the Committee on 
the Philippines, as follows : — 

" Be it enacted, etc., That when all insurrection against the sover- 
eignty and authority of the United States in the Philippine Islands, 
acquired from Spain by the treaty concluded at Paris on the 10th day 
of December, 1898, shall have been completely suppressed by the 
military and naval forces of the United States, all military, civil, 
and judicial powers necessary to govern the said islands shall, until 
otherwise provided by Congress, be vested in such person and per- 
sons, and shall be exercised in such manner as the President of the 
United States shall direct for maintaining and protecting the inhab- 
itants of said islands in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property, 
and religion. " 



o 



Mr. Lodge. This bill, Mr. President, is simple but all- 
sufficient. It makes no declarations and offers no promises 
as to a future we cannot yet predict. It meets tiie need 
of the present, and stops tliere. The President, under 
the military power, which still controls and must for some 
time control the islands, could do all that this bill provides. 
But it is well that he should have the direct authorization of 
Congress and be enabled to meet any emergency that may 
arise with the sanction of the law-making power, until that 
power shall decree otherwise. Above all, it is important 
that Congress should assert its authority; that we should 



318 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

not leave the Executive, acting with the unlimited authority 
of the war power, to go on alone after the conclusion of 
peace, but that he should proceed under the authority of 
Congress in whatever he does until Congress shall other- 
wise and more specifically provide. By this bill we follow 
the well-settled American precedents of Jefferson and 
Monroe, which were used still later in the case of Hawaii. 
To leave the war power unrestrained after the end of war, 
as was done in the case of California and New Mexico, is 
to abdicate our own authority. This bill is the assertion 
of congressional authority and of the legislative power of 
the government. To undertake any further or more far- 
reaching legislation at this time would be, in my judgment, 
a great mistake. But I believe it to be of the first impor- 
tance to define our position, so that it may be perfectly 
understood by the inhabitants of the Philippines, as well 
as by our own people. 

Negotiations, concessions, promises, and hesitations are 
to the Asiatic mind merely proofs of weakness, and tend 
only to encourage useless outbreaks, crimes, and disorders. 
A firm attitude, at once just and fearless, impresses such 
people with a sense of strength, and will calm them, give 
them a feeling of security, and tend strongly to bring 
about peace and good order. This bill conveys this im- 
pression, states the present position of the United States, 
and does nothing more. The operative and essential part 
of it is in the very words of the act by which Congress 
authorized Jefferson to govern Louisiana, and which re- 
ceived his approbation and signature. It was also used 
by Congress and by President Monroe in 1819 in regard 
to Florida. I think that in such a case we may safely tread 
in the footsteps of the author of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. He saw no contradiction between that great 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 319 

instrument and the treaty with Napoleon, or the act to 
govern Louisiana. Some modern commentators take a 
different view, and are unable to reconcile the acquisition 
of territory without wliat they call the consent of the gov- 
erned with the principles of the Declaration. Jefferson 
found no such difficulty, and I cannot but think that he 
understood the meaning of the Declaration as well as its 
latest champions and defenders. At all events, I am con- 
tent to follow him, content to vote for his bill, content to 
accept his interpretation of what he himself wrote. Even 
if he is wrong, those of us who agree with him can console 
ourselves by thinking that it is perhaps " better to err with 
Pope than shine with Pye. " 

The questions involved in the future management of 
these islands and in our policy in the far East are of a 
nature to demand the highest and the most sagacious 
statesmanship. I have always thought with Webster that 
party politics should cease " at the water's edge." Pie 
spoke only in reference to our relations with foreign na- 
tions, but I think we might well apply his patriotic prin- 
ciple to our dealings with our own insular possessions, both 
in the Atlantic and the Pacific. The Philippines should be 
an American question, not the sport of parties or the sub- , 
ject of party creeds. The responsibility for them rests 
upon the American people, not upon the Democratic or 
Republican party. If we fail in dealing with them, we 
shall all alike suffer from the failure ; and if we succeed, 
the honor and the profit will redound in the end to the 
glory and the benefit of all. This view, no doubt, seems 
visionary. It certainly ought not to be so, and in time I 
believe it will be accepted. Unfortunately it is not the 
case to-day. 

One of the great political parties of the country has 



320 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

seen fit to make what is called " an issue " of the Philip- 
pines. They have no alternative policy to propose which 
does not fall to pieces as soon as it is stated. A large and 
important part of their membership, North and South, is 
heartily in favor of expansion, because they are Americans, 
and have not only patriotism, but an intelligent percep- 
tion of their own interests. They are the traditional party 
of expansion, the party which first went beyond seas and 
tried to annex Hawaii, which plotted for years to annex 
Cuba, which have in our past acquisitions of territory their 
one great and enduring monument. In their new wander- 
ings they have developed a highly commendable, if some- 
what hysterical, tenderness for the rights of men with dark 
skins dwelling in the islands of the Pacific, in pleasing 
contrast to the harsh indifference which they have always 
manifested toward those American citizens who "wear the 
shadowed livery of the burnished sun " within the bound- 
aries of the United States. The Democratic party has 
for years been the advocate of free trade and increased 
exports, but now they shudder at our gaining control of 
the Pacific and developing our commerce with the East. 
Ready, in their opposition to protection, to open our mar- 
kets to the free competition of all the tropical, all the 
cheapest labor of the world, they are now filled with hor- 
ror at the thought of admitting to our markets that small 
fi'agment of the world's cheap labor contained in the 
Philippine Islands, something which neither Republicans 
nor any one else think for one moment of doing. Heed- 
less of their past and of their best traditions, careless of 
their inconsistencies, utterly regardless of the obvious 
commercial interests of the South, which they control ; 
totally indifferent to the wishes and beliefs of a large por- 
tion of their membership, and to the advice and example 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 321 

of some of their most patriotic, most loyal, and most cour- 
ageous leaders, to whom all honor is due, the managers of 
the Democratic organization have decided to oppose the 
retention of the Philippines and our policy of trade expan- 
sion in the East, for which those islands supply the corner 
stone. Their reason appears to be the highly sagacious 
one that it is always wise to oppose whatever Republicans 
advocate, without regard to the merits of the policy or to 
the circumstances which gave it birth. I will make no 
comment upon this theory of political action, except to 
say that it has seemed for a long time exceedingly con- 
genial to the intelligence of the Democratic party, and 
that it may perhaps account for the fact that since 1860 
they have only held for eight years a brief and inefPective 
power. As an American I regret that our opponents 
should insist on making a party question of this new and 
far-reaching problem, so fraught with great promise of 
good both to ourselves and to others. As a party man 
and as a Republican I can only rejoice. Once more our 
opponents insist that we shall be the only political party 
devoted to American policies. As the standard of expan- 
sion, once so sti'ongly held by their great predecessors, drops 
from their nerveless hands, we take it up and invite the 
American people to march with it. We offer our policy 
to the American people, to Democrats and to Republicans, 
as an American policy, alike in duty and honor, in morals 
and in interest, as one not of skepticism and doubt, but of 
hope and faith in ourselves and in the future, as becomes 
a great young nation which has not yet learned to use the 
art of retreat or to speak with the accents of despair. In 
1804 the party which opposed expansion went down in 
utter wreck before the man who, interpreting aright the 
instincts, the hopes, and the spirit of the American people, 



322 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

made the Louisiana purchase. We make the same appeal 
in behalf of our American policies. We have made the 
appeal before, and won, as we deserved to win. We shall 
not fail now. 

Before explaining our policy I should be glad, as a pre- 
liminary, to state the policy proposed by our opponents, 
so that I could contrast our own with it; but I have thus 
far been unable to discover what their policy is. No doubt 
it exists, no doubt it is beautiful, but, like many beautiful 
things, it seems to the average searcher after truth both 
diaphanous and elusive. We have had presented to us, 
it is true, the policy desired by Aguinaldo and his fol- 
lowers, — that we should acknowledge him as a government, 
enforce his rule upon the other eighty-three tribes and 
upon all the other islands, and then protect him from for- 
eign interference. This plan, which would involve us in 
endless wars with the natives and keep us embroiled with 
other nations, loads us with responsibility without power, 
and falls into ruin and absurdity the moment it is stated. 
Another proposition is that we should treat the Philip- 
pines as we treat Cuba. That is precisely what we are 
doing. But what is really meant by this demand is not 
that we should treat the Philippines as we treat Cuba, but 
that we should make to them a promise as to the future. 
And that is what every proposition made by those opposed 
to the Republican party comes down to, a promise as to 
the future. We are to put down insurrection and disorder 
and hold the islands temporarily without the consent of 
the governed, but simultaneously we are to make large 
promises as to the future which will look well in print and 
keep insurrection and disorder alive. 

The resolutions offered by Senators on the other side 
and the tenor of their speeches are all of this description. 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 323 

They present no policy, but invite us to make promises. 
Promises are neither action nor policy, and, in the form 
of legislation, are a grave mistake. Those which involve 
us in pledges of independence have the additional disad- 
vantage of being the one sure means of keeping alive war 
and disorder in the islands. Those who offer them or 
urge them proceed on the assumption that you can deal 
with an Asiatic in the same manner, and expect from him 
the same results, as from a European or an American. 
This shows, it seems to me, a fatal misconception. The 
Asiatic mind and habit of thought are utterly different 
from ours. Words or acts which to us would show gen- 
erosity and kindness and would bring peace and order, to 
an Asiatic mean simply weakness and timidity, and are to 
him an incentive to riot, resistance, and bloodshed. Prom- 
ises of this kind, therefore, are neither effective action 
nor intelligent policy, but the sure breeders of war. If 
we must abandon the Philippines, let us abandon them 
frankly. If we mean to turn them over to domestic an- 
archy or foreign control, let us do it squarely. If we are 
to retain them, let us deal manfully with the problems as 
they arise. But do not indulge in the unspeakable cruelty 
of making promises which our successors may be unable 
or unwilling to fulfill, and which will serve merely to 
light the flames of war once more and bring death to hun- 
dreds of natives and to scores of American soldiers. Let 
us not attempt in such a situation and with such responsi- 
bilities to mortgage an unknown future and give bonds to 
fate which will be redeemed in blood. 

The policy we offer, on the other hand, is simple and 
straightforward. We believe in the frank acceptance of 
existing facts, and in dealing with them as they are, and 
not on a theory of what they might or ought to be. We 



'/ 



324 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

accept the fact that the Philippine Islands are ours to-day 
and that we are responsible for them before the world. 
The next fact is that there is a war in those islands, which, 
with its chief in hiding, and no semblance of a govern- 
ment, has now degenerated into mere guerrilla fighting 
and brigandage, with a precarious existence predicated 
on the November elections. Our immediate duty, there- 
fore, is to suppress this disorder, put an end to fighting, 
and restore peace and order. That is what we are doing. 
That is all we are called upon to do in order to meet the 
demands of the living present. Beyond this we ought 
not to go by a legislative act, except to make such provi- 
sion that there may be no delay in reestablishing civil 
government when the war ends. The question of our 
constitutional right and power to govern those islands in 
any way we please I shall not discuss. Not only is it still 
in the future, but if authority is lacking, the Constitution 
can be amended. Personally I have no doubt that our 
Constitution gives full right and authority to hold and 
govern the Philippines without making them either eco- 
nomically or politically part of our system, neither of which 
they should ever be. When our great Chief Justice, John 
Marshall — clarum et venerabile nomen — declared in the 
Cherokee case that the United States could have under 
its control, exercised by treaty or the laws of Congress, a 
" domestic and dependent nation," I think he solved the 
question of our constitutional relations to the Philippines. 
Further than the acts and the policy which I have just 
stated, I can only give my own opinion and belief as to 
the future, and as to the course to be pursued in the Phil- 
ippines. I hope and believe that we shall retain the is- 
lands, and that, peace and order once restored, we shall 
and should reestablish civil government, beginning with 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 325 

the towns and villages, where the inhabitants are able to 
manage their own affairs. We should give them honest ad- 
ministration, and prompt and efficient courts. We should 
see to it that there is entire protection to persons and 
property, in order to encourage the development of the 
islands by the assurance of safety to investors of capital. 
All men should be protected in the free exercise of their 
religion, and the doors thrown open to missionaries of all 
Christian sects. The land, which belongs to the people, 
and of which they have been robbed in the past, should 
be returned to them and their titles made secure. We 
should inaugurate and carry forward, in the most earnest 
and liberal way, a comprehensive system of popular edu- 
cation. Finally, while we bring prosperity to the islands 
by developing their resources, we should, as rapidly as 
conditions will permit, bestow upon them self-government 
and home rule. Such, in outline, is the policy which I be- 
lieve can be and will be pursued toward the Philippines, 
It will require time, patience, honesty, and ability for its 
completion, but it is thoroughly practicable and reason- 
able. 

The foundation of it all is the retention of the islands y 
by the United States, and it is to that question that I de- 
sire to address myself. I shall not argue our title to the 
islands by the law of nations, for it is perfect. No other 
nation has ever questioned it. It is too plain a proposition 
to warrant the waste of time and words upon it. Equally 
plain is our right under the Constitution, by a treaty 
which is the supreme law of the land, to hold those islands. 
I will not argue this point, nor the entire legality of all 
that the President has done in accordance with his consti- 
tutional power and with the law passed by Congress at the 
last session, which recognized the necessity of an increased 



\ 



326 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

army in order to cope with the existing insurrection. The 
opposition to the Republican policy rests its weight on 
grounds widely different from these. They assert that 
on moral grounds we have no right to take or retain the 
Philippines, and that as a matter of expediency our whole 
Eastern policy is a costly mistake. I traverse both asser- 
tions. I deny both propositions. I believe we are in the 
Philippines as righteously as we are there rightfully and 
legally. I believe that to abandon the islands, or to leave 
them now, would be a wrong to humanity, a dereliction of 
duty, a base betrayal of the Filipinos who have supported 
us, led by the best men of Luzon, and in the highest de- 
gree contrary to sound morals. As to expediency, the 
arguments in favor of the retention of the Philippines 
seem to me so overwhelming that I should regard their 
loss as a calamity to our trade and commerce and to all 
our business interests so great that no man can measure it. 
Let me take these propositions in their order, beginning 
with the question of right and wrong, of morals and duty, 
involved in our action. 

Our opponents put forward as their chief objection that 
we have robbed these people of their liberty, and have 
taken them and hold them in defiance of the doctrine of 
the Declaration of Independence in regard to the consent 
of the governed. As to liberty, they have never had it, 
and have none now, except when we give it to them pro- 
tected by the flag and the armies of the United States. 
\ Their insurrection against Spain, confined to one island, 

had been utterly abortive, and could never have revived 
or been successful while Spain controlled the sea. We 
have given them all the liberty they ever had. We could 
not have robbed them of it, for they had none to lose. 
The second objection, as to the consent of the governed, 



/ 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 327 

requires more careful examination, because of tbe persist- 
ency with which it has been made the subject of heated 
declamation. I cannot hope to rival the eloquence and 
the oratory which have been devoted to this point, but I 
shall try to make a plain and simple statement in regard 
to it, lighted on my way by the facts of history, and if not, 
like so many of our opponents, a master of rhetoric, at 
least I shall go forward undazzled by its deceptive radi- 
ance. It has been stated over and over again that we 
have done great wrong in taking these islands without the 
consent of the governed, from which, according to Ameri- 
can principles, all just government derives its powers. 
The consent of the governed ! It is a fair phrase and 
runs trippingly upon the tongue, but I have observed 
a great lack of definite meaning in those who use it most. 
I have always thought it well in discussing any subject to 
know, as a preliminary, precisely what we mean by a word 
or a phrase. What do we mean by the " consent of the 
governed? " We quote it from the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. What did Jefferson mean by the phrase? 
Some persons say that he meant the consent of all the 
governed. Others that he meant the consent of some of 
the governed. Sentiment seems to be with the former 
interpretation of Jefferson's language ; the facts appear 
to be with the latter. But neither " all " nor " some " are in 
Jefferson's famous sentence. Nor is there any indication 
of how the consent is to be obtained or expressed, although 
the present especial guardians of the Declaration seem to 
assume that it must be by a vote. 

In order to interpret Jefferson's language aright, let us 
see what kind of a government he was himself engaged in 
setting up, for there alone can we get light as to his mean- 
ing. The Declaration of Independence was the announce- 



328 THE PHILIPPmE ISLANDS. 

ment of the existence of a new revolutionary government 
upon American soil. Upon whose consent did it rest ? 
Was it upon that of all the people of the colonies duly 
expressed ? Most assuredly not. In the first place, we 
must throw out all negroes and persons of African de- 
scent, who formed about one quarter of the population, 
and who were not consulted at all as to the proposed change 
of government. So we must immediately insert the word 
" white " in Jefferson's sentence. Let us go a step further. 
Were women included in the word "governed"? They 
certainly were not permitted by voice or vote to express 
an opinion on this momentous question. They must, there- 
fore, be excluded, and we must add to the word "white" 
the word " male " as a further limitation upon the gov- 
erned whom Jefferson had in mind. Did the revolution- 
ary government rest on the consent of all the white males 
in the colonies? Most assuredly not. There was the 
usual age limitation which shut out all the male persons 
under twenty-one, and manhood suffrage, as we under- 
stand it, did not exist in a single colony. Everywhere 
the suffrage was limited, generally by property qualifica- 
tions, sometimes by other restrictions. So another amend- 
ment becomes necessary to Jefferson's phrase if we are 
going to make it fit the government which he was actually 
engaged in setting up. Conforming to the facts, the sen- 
tence then would read something like this : " Deriving 
their just powers from the consent of the white male gov- 
erned who have the right to vote according to the laws of 
the various colonies." This is not all. The white male 
population of voting and military age in the colonies was 
divided upon the question of the Revolution. In some 
states the Loyalists were in a majority ; in others the Pa- 
triots were in a majority ; and in still others the two parties 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 329 

appear to have been pretty evenly balanced. Taking the 
colonies as a whole, a very large minority, if not quite half, 
of the people whom the Continental Congress proposed to 
govern were utterly opposed to the Revolution. Did we 
ask their consent ? Not at all. We crowded the revolu- 
tionary government on the Loyalists at the point of the 
bayonet, and when the Revolution was over they had to 
accept the government thus forced upon them or go into 
exile, which many of them did. Therefore, if we test 
Jefferson's phrase by the facts of the government which 
we see he himself was engaged in setting up, we find 
that it does not in the least meet the fantastic extensions 
which it has been sought to put upon it in the interests of 
the Filipinos. 

The truth is that those were the days of Rousseau and 
his theories, and the doctrines of the social compact were 
strong in their influence upon all the political thought of 
the time. We can trace, I think, Jefferson's aphorism to 
this source. What Jefferson really did — with Rousseau 
and the theory of the social compact in mind — was to 
put in the form of a large generalization the principle for 
which the colonies engaged in the Revolution, which was 
that they were not to be taxed without representation and 
without their consent. He was not drafting a law or a 
constitution providing for all contingencies and setting up 
all sorts of limitations. If he had done that, no one would 
have heeded his Declaration at the moment, much less read 
and repeated it since. Jefferson was saying to all the 
world what the American people, whom he represented, 
felt, and what he himself believed. To do this he set 
forth a series of general principles in broad and brilliant 
terms, so that the whole world listened then, and the 
American people have repeated his sentences from that 



330 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

day to this. He would have been the first to deny the 
narrow, rigid interpretation which, in the exigencies of 
debate, men have sought to place upon his words. But we 
are not at a loss to know what Jefferson himself thought. 
He was the greatest expansionist in our history. He ac- 
quired a vast territory for the United States. Did he ask 
the consent of the thirty thousand white men at the mouth 
of the Mississippi, or of the Indians roaming over the wide 
expanses of the Louisiana Purchase ? Such an idea never 
occurred to him for one moment. He took Louisiana 
without the consent of the governed, and he ruled it with- 
out the consent of the governed. It was not a question 
then of " all " or " some." He never asked the consent 
of any of the governed, either to take the territory or to 
rule it afterwards. 

But it is not necessary to stretch Jefferson's phrase 
embodying a general principle in which we all believe on 
the Procrustean bed of facts. As the Frenchman said, 
" No generalization is completely true, not even this one." 
To pull a sentence out of a revolutionary manifesto and 
deal with it as if it was one of the labored and chiseled 
clauses of the Constitution shows a sad confusion of 
thought. Neither Thomas Jefferson nor any other sen- 
sible man supposed for one moment that it was possible 
to have a govei-nment rest on the expressed consent of all 
the governed. No such government has ever existed, or 
ever can exist ; and yet the governments of the United 
States and of the several states of the Union rest to-day 
firmly and absolutely upon the consent of the governed. 
Take my own State of Massachusetts. The total popula- 
tion of the State is, in round numbers, 2,500,000. The 
total number of registered voters for the state election of 
1899 was 490,483. The other 2,000,000 inhabitants of 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 331 

Massachusetts, men, women, and children, had neither the 
right nor the power in any way to express their consent to 
the government of the State. The people who had the 
right to rule this State were a little less than one fifth of 
the population, and of those people 297,000 only exercised 
the privilege last November. Of the two million and a 
half people resident in Massachusetts, less than three 
hundred thousand have expressed their consent to the gov- 
ernment which to-day rules over them. Yet the govern- 
ment of Massachusetts rests on the consent of the gov- 
erned, if any government of the world ever did; and we 
know it, not from the number of voters who vote, but from 
the fact that the entire population acquiesce in the form 
of government under which a majority of a small minority 
of the people rule the State. In other words, the consent 
of the governed is not to be determined by votes alone, 
nor their dissent by the riot, insurrection, or disorder of 
a fraction of the population. The plebiscites which sup- 
ported the third Napoleon on his throne did not represent 
the consent of the people of France, and yet tlioy were 
large and nearly unanimous. While, on the other hand, 
the closely divided vote of our last general election sup- 
plies in its result, which all men accept, the firm founda- 
tion upon which the Government of the United States 
to-day rests with the consent of all the governed. From 
this it follows that the consent of the governed is a phrase 
which represents a great and just principle, but which in 
practice must have its existence determined by actual facts 
and conditions, and is not to be ascertained merely by vot- 
ing or in any other one way. 

But this is not all. We must go a step farther and see 
how the American people throughout their history have 
applied this principle to the vast territory which they have 



332 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

acquired. We have an immediate interpretation of the 
declaration in the secret treaty made with France at the 
time of the treaty of alliance in 1778. In that treaty oc- 
curs the following article : — 

If the United States should think fit to attempt the reduction 
of British power remaining in the northern parts of America, or 
the Islands of Bermudas, those countries or islands, in case of 
success, shall be confederated with or dependent upon the said 
United States. 

It will be observed that this clause provides for the ac- 
quisition of inhabited territory by conquest, and asserts 
the right of the United States to govern the territory so 
conquered as a dependency of the United States, if it sees 
fit. I find nothing in it about the consent of the governed, 
yet that treaty clause was drawn by Benjamin Franklin, 
who was on the committee which drafted the Declaration 
of Independence, and to whom it was submitted for amend- 
ment and correction. I cannot but feel that Franklin 
knew what the Declaration meant, and that he saw no in- 
consistency with it in writing the clause of the treaty which 
I have quoted and which the circumstances of the time 
demanded. 

Hard upon this first practical interpretation of the 
Declaration of Independence came our first extension of 
territory, through the conquest of the Illinois country by 
George Eogers Clark. That brilliant feat of arms car- 
ried our boundaries to the Mississippi on the west and to 
the Great Lakes on the north. But I never heard that 
we asked the consent of the French inhabitants of that 
region, which had been wrested from France by England, 
to our government, when by the right of conquest they 
were ceded to us under the treaty of Paris. 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 333 

The uext, and the greatest of all our expansions, was 
the Louisiana purchase. There is no word in the treaty 
about the consent of the governed, nor in the resolutions 
of Congress which gave Jefferson the power to rule over 
that vast region, nor in the act organizing the territorial 
government, which was to be the ci'eation of the executive 
power. Yet there were thirty thousand white men settled 
at the mouth of the Mississippi and in its neighborhood, 
who had no good-will to this government, and whose wishes 
were never consulted at all by the nations which decided 
their fate. Are we to be told that this differs from the 
case of the Filipinos because the inhabitants of Louisiana 
were few and the territory was vast and sparsely popu- 
lated ? I have heard such an argument advanced, incredi- 
ble as it may seem, and I can only reply to it by asking 
if the consent of the governed rests upon the number of 
the people involved ? If so, at what point in the census 
does this great doctrine begin to take effect ? I confess, 
Mr. President, that my principles in regard to the rights 
of man are not quite so flexible as that. The doctrine of 
the consent of the governed is just as sacred for one man 
as for ten, for thirty thousand as for ten million. To say 
that it is modified or determined by land areas or census 
statistics is as apposite as to declare that it is controlled 
by the abundance of springs or the paucity of trees. Such 
a proposition is fit to go hand in hand with that other 
which I find in resolutions and speeches here, to the effect 
that it is permissible to rule without the consent of the 
governed if you will promise to do it only for a little while. 
No, Mr. President, if the consent of the governed is a 
rigid and immutable principle, no casuistry of this sort can 
make it at once absolute and open to modification. It is 
either subject to the laws of common sense in its applica- 



334 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

tion or it is fixed and unchangeable. It cannot be both at 
once. Jefferson's mind was certainly free from all such 
confusions. He did not attempt to rest his acquisition 
and o-overnment of Louisiana without the consent of the 
governed on any such grounds as the numbers of the popu- 
lation or the size of the territory. He put it on the real 
ground, that of truth and common sense, for in 1803 he 
wrote to De Witt Clinton : — 

Although it is acknowledged that our new fellow citizens are 
as yet incapable of self-government as children, yet some can- 
not bring themselves to suspend its principles for a single 
moment. 



1 



Thus, then, under the guidance of Thomas Jefferson, 
and with a Congress obedient to his slightest behest, we 
took Louisiana without the consent of the governed, and 
ruled it without their consent so long as we saw fit. Who 
is there to-day who will stand up and say that Thomas 
Jefferson did not do well and rightly when he bought 
Louisiana ? 

A few years more passed, and, in 1819, we bought 
Florida from Spain without the consent of the governed, 
and this crime against the Declaration of Independence 
was perpetrated by John Quincy Adams and James Mon- 
roe. Moreover, Congress placed in the hands of President 
Monroe, who was the principal criminal, power to govern 
this new territory absolutely, in the very terms employed 
by a previous Congress when they conferred a like authority 
upon Thomas Jefferson. 

The next case is Texas. There we had technically the 

1 Extract of a letter from Thomas Jefferson to De Witt Clinton, 
dated at Washington, December 2, 1803. — The Writings of Thomas 
Jefferson, edited by Paul Leicester Ford, p. 283. 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 335 

consent of the governed, but it so happened that those who 
ruled Texas were Americans. They had gone into that 
region, settled the country, and conquered it in war from 
Mexico. Having done that, they decided to rejoin their 
own country, bringing their conquered territory with tlaem. 
The way was a little more roundabout, but the result was 
the same as if the Government of the United States had 
conquered Texas for itself. I never have been able to 
discover any indication that the Mexicans who lived in 
that great region had their consent asked, and I have a 
very strong impression that the rule of the American in- 
vaders was forced upon such persons as happened to be 
there before their arrival, without regard to the latter's 
wishes. 

Then came the Mexican war, and by the treaty of Guada- 
lupe Hidalgo we received a great cession of territory from 
Mexico, including all the California coast ; and although 
we paid Mexico twenty millions as indemnity, I think it 
has been held that the cession was one of conquest. There 
were many Mexicans living within the ceded territory. 
We never asked their consent. Must we again draw the 
census line, and say that the country was too large and 
they were too few to be entitled to a consent ? There 
seems to be no other escape, if it is desired to distinguish 
the California acquisition from that of the Philippines. I 
need not dwell upon the Gadsden purchase which followed 
in 1852, except to say that under its provisions we bought 
territory with the people on it from Mexico, and nobody 
was consulted except the governments of Mexico and of 
the United States. 

The consent of the governed appears next in a question 
which involved, not the expansion of the United States, 
but the retention of a large part of its existing domain. 



336 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

In 1861 eleven states of the Union decided to leave it. 
With the profoundest faith in the justice of their cause, 
with the utmost bravery and the highest military skill, 
they fought their battle for four long years. What was 
the reply of the people of the United States to the propo- 
sition of the eleven seceding states ? Simply this, " You 
shall not go"; and the people of the United States, with 
the profoundest faith in the justice of their cause, and 
with bravery and skill quite equal to that of their South- 
ern brethren, fought for their belief for four years, and 
won. We forced the Southern States back into the Union, 
and will any one tell me that we asked the consent of 
the governed ? I have heard it said that this was a case 
to which the consent of the governed could not apply, 
because it was rebellion against the will of the majority, 
which we had all agreed to obey. Even this poor quibble 
will not serve. The great President, one of the greatest 
men of the century now dying, who led his country through 
those awful years, and who finally laid down his life in 
her behalf, was elected President in 1860 by a minority 
of the popular vote. No, Mr. President, the existence 
of the Union was at stake in the Civil War, and all ques- 
tions about the consent of the governed went down into 
nothingness, as they deserved to go, in the presence of 
that master issue. 

One more case, and I have done with the list of expan- 
sions. In 1867 we purchased Alaska from Russia, — ter- 
ritory, people, and all. Let me call attention to article 
three. It is there said that — 

The inhabitants of the ceded territory, according to their choice, 
reserving their natural allegiance, may return to Russia within 
three years ; but if they should prefer to remain in the ceded 
territory, they, with the exception of uncivilized native tribes, 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 337 

shall be admitted to the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages, 
and immunities of citizens of the United States, and shall be 
maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, 
property, and religion. The uncivilized tribes will be subject to 
such laws and regulations as the United States may from time 
to time adopt in regard to aboriginal tribes of that country. 

It will be observed that to the white inhabitants we al- 
low the liberty of returning to Russia, but we except the 
uncivilized tribes specifically. They are to be governed 
without their consent, and they are not even to be allowed 
to become citizens. Why, only the other day, Mr, Presi- 
dent, a great Democratic thinker announced that a repub- 
lic could have no subjects. He seems to have forgotten 
that this republic not only has held subjects from the be- 
ginning, in the persons of those whom we euphemistically 
call the " wards of the nation," but that, to our shame be 
it said, we once authorized the slave trade in our Consti- 
tution, and provided for fugitive slave laws. More than 
this, if he had been familiar with the Alaskan treaty, he 
would have known that we not only hold subjects, but have 
acquired them by purchase. This Alaskan treaty passed 
without serious opposition, and when the appropriation to 
carry it out went through the House, the House added to 
the bill a specific approval of the treatj'. This infringe- 
ment of the constitutional right of the Senate was stricken 
out when it reached the treaty-making branch, but it is of 
interest because the House in voting for it gave formal 
approval to the treaty provisions. They approved of the 
provision which transferred the inhabitants without their 
consent to the jurisdiction of the United States, and which 
denied to the Indian tribes even the right to choose their 
allegiance, or to become citizens. It interested me to 
notice, although the point is a very unimportant one, that 



338 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

among those who in the House approved this vast acqui- 
sition of territory without the consent of the governed, 
and with the careful exclusion of the Indians from all 
rights, was my eminent fellow citizen, ex-Governor Bout- 
well. 

Prophets of evil are not lacking to declare ruin inevi- 
table if we persist in our career of expansion and in setting 
no fixed bounds to the progress of the country. Like the 
raven of Macbeth, they croak themselves hoarse in pre- 
dicting the downfall of the republic. These dire fore- 
bodings are not new. Look back to the debates of 1803 
and the succeeding years, and you will find there all that 
is being said now in almost the same language, and with 
the same certainty of swift-coming disaster. In view of 
the results of the Louisiana Purchase, the gloomy prophe- 
cies of these old Cassandras look very queer and make 
us smile. But they are no queerer than the black pre- 
dictions of their successors of to-day will appear to the 
next generation. The downfall of the republic has been 
constantly and confidently foretold many times since the 
foundation of the government, generally on trivial grounds, 
and always when a great expansion of territory took place. 
Never has it come true. Only once was the great peril 
real and near, and that was not when men were trying to 
widen the bounds of the republic, but when they sought 
to divide it and make it small. 

Thus, Mr. President, I have reviewed our former acqui- 
sitions of territory. The record of American expansions 
which closes with Alaska has been a long one, and to-day 
we do but continue the same movement. The same policy 
runs through them all, — the same general acceptance of 
the laws of nations in regard to the transfer of territory, 
the same absence of any reference to the consent of the 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 339 

governed. It has not only been the American policy, it 
is the only policy practicable in such transactions. Why 
should we now be suddenly confronted with the objection 
that it is a crime to acquire the territories ceded to us by 
Spain in 1898, when we cheerfully accept all the previous 
cessions, which do not differ one whit in principle from 
the last? If the arguments which have been offered 
against our taking the Philippine Islands because we 
have not the consent of the inhabitants be just, then our 
whole past record of expansion is a crime, and Thomas 
Jefferson, and John Quincy Adams, and James Monroe, 
and all the rest of our Presidents and statesmen who have 
added to our national domain are traitors to the cause of 
liberty and to the Declaration of Independence. Does 
any one really believe it? I think not. Then let us be 
honest and look at this whole question as it really is. I 
am not ashamed of that long record of American expan- 
sion. I am proud of it. I do not think that we violated 
in that record the principles of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. On the contrary, I think we spread them over 
regions where they were unknown. Guided by the prin- 
ciples of that record, I am proud of the treaty of Paris, 
which is but a continuance of our American policy. The 
taking of the Philippines does not violate the principles 
of the Declaration of Independence, but will spread them 
among a people who have never known liberty, and who 
in a few years will be as unwilling to leave the shelter of 
the American flag as those of any other territory we ever 
brought beneath its folds. 

The next argument of the opponents of the Republican 
policy is that we are denying self-government to the Fili- 
pinos. Our reply is that to give independent self-govern- 
ment at once, as we understand it, to a people who have 



340 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

no just conception of it and no fitness for it, is to dower 
them with a curse instead of a blessing. To do this would 
be entirely to arrest their progress, instead of advancing 
them on the road to the liberty and free government which 
we wish them to achieve and enjoy. This contention rests, 
of course, on the proposition that the Filipinos are not 
to-day in the least fitted for self-government, as we under- 
stand it. The argument on this point is, I will admit, 
much simplified by the admissions of our opponents. The 
past, present, and prospective leader and Presidential 
candidate of the Democratic party said at Minneapolis, 
on January 10 : — 

I am a firm believer in the enlargement and extension of the 
limits of the republic. I don't mean by that the extension by 
the addition of contiguous territory, nor to limit myself to that. 

Wherever there is a people intelligent enough to form a part 
of this republic, it is my belief that they should be taken in. 
Wherever there is a people who are capable of having a voice 
and a representation in this government, there the limits of the 
republic may be extended. 

The Filipinos are not such a people. The Democratic party 
has ever favored the extension of the limits of this republic ; but 
it has never advocated the acquisition of subject territory to be 
held under colonial government. 

I do not assert that this is his view to-day, for Mr. 
Bryan gives forth a great variety of opinions on a great 
variety of topics. I have not, unfortunately, either time 
or opportunity to indulge in the delight of reading all he 
says ; for even if he does not from night to night show 
knowledge, he certainly from day to day uttereth speech. 
The passage that I have quoted seems, however, to be the 
last authentic deliverance on the subject, and in it Mr. 
Bryan distinctly admits that the Filipinos are unfit for 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 341 

self-government, as we understand it. What is far more 
important and to the purpose, the Senator from Washing- 
ton, in the able and interesting speech which he delivered 
on this subject, has made the same admission. Thus our 
differences narrow. They think that we should abandon 
the Philippines because they are not fit for self-govern- 
ment. I believe that for that very reason we should re- 
tain them, and lead them along the path of freedom until 
they are able to be self-governing, so far, at least, as all 
their own affairs are concerned. I should be glad to let 
the matter rest here and confine myself to this very nar- 
row ground of difference ; but, unfortunately, there are 
people who do not recognize facts so frankly as the Sena- 
tor to whom I have referred, and who contend either that 
the Filipinos are fit for self-government in the highest 
acceptation of the terra, or that it is our duty to withdraw 
and leave them to set up such a government as they can 
evolve for themselves. 

I do not think the Filipinos are fit for self-government 
as we understand it, and I am certain that if we left them 
alone the result would be disastrous to them and discredit- 
able to us. Left to themselves the islands, if history, 
facts, and experience teach anything, would sink into a 
great group of Haitis and St. Domingos, with this impor- 
tant difference, that there would be no Monroe Doctrine 
to prevent other nations from interfering to put an end 
to the ruin of the people and the conversion of a fair land 
into a useless and unproductive waste. The nations of 
Europe are not going to stand idly by and see the islands 
of the Philippines given over to anarchy and dictator- 
ships of the Haitian type, while their waters swarm again 
with pirates whom Sjiain suppressed, and whom we have 
now the responsibility of keeping down and extinguishing. 



342 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

We have no right to give those islands up to anarchy, 
tyrannies, and piracy, and I hope we have too much self- 
respect to hand them over to European powers, with the 
confession that they can restore peace and order more 
kindly and justly than we, and lead the inhabitants on- 
ward to a larger liberty and a more complete self-govern- 
ment than we can bestow upon them. Therefore, Mr. 
President, I desire to show why I feel so confident that 
the Filipinos are not now fit for self-government, and 
that their only hope of reaching the freedom, self-govern- 
ment, and civilization which we desire them to have, lies 
in our now holding, governing, and controlling the islands. 
Let us look first for a moment at the new territory of 
which we have thus become the possessors. The Philip- 
pine group extends over a distance of one thousand miles 
north and south. The large-scale maps show that it con- 
sists of 1725 islands, great and small. Of these, at least 
sixty are over twenty miles square. Geographically, there- 
fore, it is a broken and separated territory, scattered over a 
wide extent of ocean. It is physically without unity or 
connection. The best statistics — and the best are poor 
— indicate that there is a population on all the islands of 
over eight million. This population consists of different 
races, of many tribes, — President Schurman and Profes- 
sor Worcester say that there are eighty-four, — speaking 
fifty or sixty languages and dialects. Most of these people 
are of the Malay stock, but in many of the tribes the Ma- 
lay blood is greatly mixed. One division consists of the 
Negritos, few in number, and steadily declining, who are 
ethnically totally different from the Malays, largely sav- 
age wanderers in the mountainous and wooded interiors 
of the islands, and who are in the lowest stage of barbarism. 
They are racially as different from the Malays as we are. 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 343 

Another, and a large division, consists of people of what 
is sometimes called the Indonesian stock, who are physi- 
cally a finer race than the Malays, but who are still en- 
tirely uncivilized, and who are pagans in religion. There 
are also in the interior many wild and barbarous Malay 
tribes, with no conception of government whatever, except 
in the case of certain of them like the Macabebes, who 
have one fixed political idea, which is that they will fight 
the Tagals to the death and will unite with any one against 
them. The Malay tribes are almost as widely divided 
among themselves as from the Negritos. Those of the 
Sulu Archijielago and Mindanao are Mohammedans, and 
bitter foes of the Christianized Malays of Luzon; and 
among the Christianized Malays some are as hostile to 
the Tagals as they are to the Moros, while the wild tribes, 
or "Infieles," are hostile to both. The islands fell an 
easy prey to the Spanish conquerors, because there was 
no unity among them. They were occupied by detached 
tribes living under the despotism of local chiefs. There 
was no consolidation, no unity, even among the inhabitants 
of a single island. The Filipinos have never been either 
a people or a nation. There has never been any single 
sovereignty there, or any central government, except that 
of Spain, to which we succeeded. To accept the Tagal 
followers of Aguinaldo as representing the inhabitants of 
the Philippine Islands would be just as intelligent as to 
hold that because William Penn made a treaty with the 
Delawares we thereby bound, and were bound to, the Sioux, 
Pawnees, and Apaches, who roamed over the great plains 
of the West. There has never been a Filipino nation ; there 
has never been a Filipino government; there is not a scin- 
tilla of evidence that at any period they had any central 
government whatever or were capable of having any form 



344 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

of government, larger than a village community, which was 
not an unrestrained Asiatic despotism, whether exercised 
by a sultan in the Mohammedan regions or by some mili- 
tary dictator of like political instincts among those who 
had come under the rule and example of Spain. Of self- 
government, as we understand it or as it is understood by 
Western civilization, there has never been the faintest 
conception in the Philippine Islands, and there never will 
be unless we give them the opportunity, and by slow pro- 
cesses teach them what it is. Geographically and ethni- 
cally — because they are scattered islands, and because the 
people are divided among eighty-four tribes in all stages 
of development, from savagery to civilization, speaking 
fifty or sixty different dialects or languages, with every 
form of religion — they are to-day not only unfit for self- 
government, but from the physical facts alone self-govern- 
ment is impossible to the Philippines as a whole. There 
must be one central, strong, civilized power which shall 
control all the islands, and thus give them in the only pos- 
sible way the opportunity of rising to freedom and home 
rule. 

The capacity of a people, moreover, for free and repre- 
sentative government is not in the least a matter of guess- 
work. The forms of government to which nations or races 
naturally tend may easily be discovered from history. 
You can follow the story of political freedom and repre- 
sentative government among the English-speaking people 
back across the centuries, until you reach the Teutonic 
tribes emerging from the forests of Germany and bringing 
with them forms of local self-government which are re- 
peated to-day in the pure democracies of the New England 
town-meetinof. The tendencies and instincts of the Teu- 
tonic race which, reaching from the Arctic Circle to the 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 345 

Alps, swept clown upon the Roman Empire, were clear at 
the outset. Yet the individual freedom and the highly de- 
veloped forms of free government, in which these tenden- 
cies and instincts have culminated in certain countries and 
under the most favorable conditions, have been the slow 
growth of nearly fifteen hundred years. 

There never has been, on the other hand, the slightest 
indication of any desire for what we call freedom or repre- 
sentative government east of Constantinople. The battle 
of Marathon was but the struggle between a race which 
had the instinct and desire for freedom and the opposite 
principle. The form of government natural to the Asiatic 
has always been a despotism. You may search the liistory 
of Asia and of the East for the slightest trace, not merely 
of any understanding, but of any desire for political lib- 
erty, as we understand the word. In the village com- 
munities of India, in the Mura of Japan, in the towns and 
villages of China, you can find forms of local self-govern- 
ment which are as successful as they are ancient. The 
Malays of Java and of the Philippines as well display the 
same capacity, and on this old and deep-rooted practice the 
self-government of provinces and states can, under proper 
auspices, be built up. It is just here that our work ought 
to begin. But this local self-government never went be- 
yond the town or the village ; it never grew and spread, 
as was the case with the Teutonic tribes and their descend- 
ants. The only central, state, or national governments 
which the Eastern and Asiatic people have formed or set 
up have been invariably despotisms. They may have been 
tempered by assassination and palace intrigues, the revolts 
of factions may have changed dynasties, the wave of con- 
quest may have ebbed and flowed; but the principle of the 
unlimited power of one man, of the pure despot, whether 



346 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

it be Xerxes or Genghis Khan, the Sultan of Sulu or an 
adventurer like Aguinaldo, has never failed, and has main- 
tained an undisputed acceptance throughout all the vast 
regions of the East. 

You cannot change race tendencies in a moment. Habits 
of thought slowly formed through long periods of time, 
and based on physical, climatic, and geographical pecu- 
liarities, are more indestructible than the pyramids them- 
selves. Only by very slow processes can they be modified 
or changed. Buckle's theory, that you could make a Hot- 
tentot into a European if you only took possession of him 
in infancy and gave him a European education among 
suitable surroundings, has been abandoned alike by science 
and history as grotesquely false. It is perhaps possible 
for an extremely clever and superior people like the Jap- 
anese, with their unsurpassed capacity of imitation, to 
adopt western forms of government ; but whether the un- 
derlying conceptions — which are the only solid foundation 
of free institutions — can exist under such circumstances 
is yet to be proved, and all human experience is against 
the theory. These political conceptions are of very slow 
srrowth even amons; the races whose natural tendencies 
and instincts lead toward them, but in the particular in- 
stance which we are called upon to consider we are not 
left in the dark. We know what sort of government the 
Malay makes when he is left to himself. Study the his- 
tory of the Malay States, and you will find that before the 
advent of the British residents they were governed by 
despotic chiefs, and their condition was one of incessant 
private or public war, coupled with a condition of society 
little, if any, short of anarchy. But we have an even 
better example in the Philippine Islands themselves. In 
the Sulu group and in the Island of Mindanao, you find 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 347 

perfect types of the government which the Malay, when left 
to himself, naturally produces. These islands are ruled 
by sultans, who are supposed to have a general authority ; 
and more directly by datos, or local chiefs. Every one of 
these governments is a personal despotism of a more or less 
murderous character. The people of the islands which fell 
under the control of Spain have changed their religion, 
but they have not changed their habits of mind or their 
natural instincts. Give them unlianipered liberty to do 
what they like, and you would have the governments of 
Sulu or Mindanao repeated. There would be modifications 
unquestionably, because Christianity has modified the 
character of the people ; but their political instincts are 
unchanged, and the only model of civilized government 
which they have had opportunity to know is tlie corrupt 
and broken rule of the Spaniard, who has himself emerged 
from despotism less than r. hundred years ago. I am far 
from criticising or finding fault with the people about 
whom I make this statement. Aguinaldo's government 
was a pure military dictatorship. He took possession of 
the governmental machinery of Spain, such as it was ; but 
the military power, as you may see by referring to the ac- 
count of the two naval officers who traveled throughout 
the island, was everywhere dominant. In Negros, which 
was friendly to us from the beginning, we gave the people 
the utmost latitude to do as they liked. They set up a 
government of their own, and chose their best men for 
office. It broke down, and they came of their own accord 
to our general and asked him again to assume conti'ol. 
They were not fit to carry on a government for themselves, 
and they themselves recognized it. Free government, as 
we know it, is no child's play to be learned in a moment. 
A republic like our own we know to be the freest and the 



348 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

most representative government on earth, but we are apt 
to forget that it is also the most complicated and the most 
difficult. We are so accustomed to it that we do not re- 
member that it is the result not merely of centuries of 
struggle, but, what is far more important, of a training 
and a mental habit which stretch back to the twilight of 
history. 

Is it to be supposed that a people whose every instinct, 
every mode of thought, and every prejudice is hostile to 
what we consider the commonplaces of political existence, 
are going to take up in the twinkling of an eye and work 
successfully the most intricate forms of self-government 
ever devised by man .^ To make such an assumption is 
not only to betray an utter ignorance of history, but is to 
give the lie to all human experience. We must not con- 
fuse names with things. It does not follow because a gov- 
ernment is called a republic that it is therefore a free 
government, as we understand it ; or because it is called a 
monarchy that it is therefore a tyranny or a despotism. 
To the south of us lie many governments called republics. 
Are they free governments, as we understand the term ? 
He would be a bold man who would undertake to answer 
that question in the affirmative. Haiti and Santo Do- 
mingo are called republics, and yet they are bloody tyr- 
annies. The condition they create is anarchy. Neither 
life, liberty, nor property is safe; and as the islands slide 
downward in the scale of civilization the controlling power 
shifts from the hands of one military adventurer to those 
of another. Because they are called republics, will any one 
say that they are freer, more representative, better fitted 
for individual liberty and for civilization than the Govern- 
ment of Holland, which is called a monarchy t Again I 
say, let us not confuse names with things. The problem 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 349 

we have before us is to give to people who have no con- 
ception of free government, as we understand it and carry 
it on, the opportunity to learn that lesson. What better 
proof could there be of their present unfitness for self- 
government than their senseless attacks upon us before 
anything had been done ? Could anything demonstrate 
more fully the need of time and opportunity to learn the 
principles of self-government than this assault upon liber- 
ators and friends at the bidding of a self-seeking, self- 
appointed, unscrupulous autocrat and dictator ? Some of 
the inhabitants of the Philippines, who have had the ben- 
efit of Christianity and of a measure of education, will, 
I have no doubt, under our fostering care and with peace 
and order, assume at once a degree of self-government 
and advance constantly, with our aid, toward a still larger 
exercise of that inestimable privilege ; but to abandon 
those islands is to leave them to anarchy, to short-lived 
military dictatorships, to the struggle of factions, and, in 
a very brief time, to their seizure by some great Western 
power, who will not be at all desirous to train them in 
the principles of freedom, as we are, but who will take 
them because the world is no longer large enough to per- 
mit some of its most valuable portions to lie barren and 
ruined, the miserable results of foolish political experi- 
ments. 

Now, Mr. President, before discussing the advantages 
to the United States which will accrue from our possession 
of these islands, I desire to state briefly the course of our 
action there since the outbreak of the insurrection.^ 

We see that under Aguinaldo's government, which 
represented only the leaders who set it up, and never had 

' I omit here a detailed review of events in the islands after our 
landing and of the suppression of the insurrection. 



350 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

the support of anything but a very small proportion of 
the Filipino population, warfare of the most barbarous 
sort was carried on, and every kind of crime was commit- 
ted, not only against every open enemy, but against help- 
less prisoners, and against the inhabitants of the islands, 
of whose freedom they were loudly proclaiming themselves 
the champions for the benefit of their sympathizers in the 
United States. We have no need to say that if we had 
left the Filipinos alone anarchy would have come. An- 
archy came, and existed in full force wherever Aguinaldo 
held sway, coupled with bloodshed, pillage, and corrup- 
tion. 

Such are the men to whom it is seriously proposed 
that we should intrust the control of all the other millions 
of human beings, some half civilized, some wholly wild, 
who live in these other islands. Such is the government, 
stained with assassination, with the burning and pillage 
of the villages of their own people, with plans for the 
massacre of all foreigners, and for murder and looting in 
Manila, cruel, arbitrary, despotic, treacherous ; such, I 
say, is the government which we are gravely asked to as- 
sist in forcing upon the innocent population of those is- 
lands, and we are denounced because we have not done it. 
To have recognized Aguinaldo' s government and helped 
him to thrust it upon the other natives, or to have drawn 
aside and allowed him to try to wade " through slaughter 
to a throne," would have been a crime against humanity. 
Those who have urged, or who now urge, such a policy 
should study with care and with thoroughness the gov- 
ernment of Aguinaldo. They never do so. They never 
take the trouble to learn the facts about the despotism 
which Aguinaldo and his friends tried to set up. They 
laugh at facts, deride all who are in a position to bear wit- 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 351 

ness, sneer at history and experience, and declaim against 
the government for not giving recognition and support 
to something which never existed, which is the mere crea- 
ture of their fancy. 

How different their attitude when they come to consider- 
ing the actions of their own countrymen. Men who will 
take the lightest word of a half-bred adventurer, of whose 
existence they had never heard two years ago, impugn the 
actions and doubt the statements of the highest officers of 
our government, of the commanders of our fleets and 
armies, of men who have gone in and out before the 
American people for years, and whose courage, patriotism, 
and honor have never been questioned or assailed. It 
must be a weak and bad cause, indeed, which rests its sup- 
port upon accusations of falsehood and prevarication di- 
rected against the President and his advisers, and against 
the gallant and honorable men who wear our uniform 
and lead our army and our navy in the day of battle. 
The opponents of our policy have searched the record for 
every careless word ; they have thrown themselves eagerly 
on every idle rumor ; they have twisted facts ; they have 
imputed the worst motives to men who have proved their 
devotion to their country on the field of battle and in 
every department of civil life. Let us be just, at least, to 
our own. I ask no more. Take the evidence of all the 
men who have been in those islands and whose knowledire 
and experience entitle them to speak ; take the official record 
from day to day since the Spanish war began ; examine 
the report of your commissioners, your men of science, 
your army and navy officers ; read the utterances and the 
proclamations of the insurgent leader, — weigh, sift, discuss. 
Then face the facts, all the facts, and set down naught in 
malice. If this is done, there can be but one result. The 



352 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

government of Aguinaldo will stand out as I have described 
it, for there is no escape from the evidence. Turn to the 
other side, and you will find, not that in a situation of great 
difficulty and delicacy there were no mistakes, but great 
cause for wonder that so few were made. You will find 
that our Admiral and our generals never swerved from 
the line laid down ; that they made no false promises ; 
that they carried patience and forbearance to such a point 
that it encouraged men of Asiatic mind to think us weak 
and timid, fit subjects for attack. You will find that 
they saved the great city from fire and sword ; that they 
curbed the insurgents ; that they dealt with them justly ; 
that they grasped at every chance for peace, only to find 
that each proposition was a sham, with neither substance 
nor honesty in any negotiation offered. You will also find 
that when war was forced upon them, so soon as they had 
troops and opportunity they pushed it rapidly, effectively, 
and with the skill and gallantry characteristic of American 
soldiers to a successful conclusion. 

Behind all this lies the policy of the President, which 
our officers followed by sea and land. History will say 
that it has been firm, consistent, and humane from the 
beginning. No false hopes were held out. From the 
dispatch of May 26 onward, the attitude of our govern- 
ment was clear and unmistakable. But every real hope, 
every proper promise, was freely offered and never vio- 
lated. There are many duties imposed upon a President 
in which it is easy to imagine a personal or selfish motive, 
in which such motives might exist even if they do not. 
But here even the most malignant must be at loss to find 
the existence of a bad motive possible. Suddenly, at the 
end of the Spanish war we were confronted with the 
question of what should be done with the Philippines. 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 353 

Their fate was In our hands. We were all able to discuss 
them, and to speculate as to what that fate should be. No 
responsibility rested upon us. But one man had to act. 
While the rest of the world was talking he had to be doing. 
The iron hand of necessity was upon his shoulder, and 
upon his alone. Act he must. No man in that high office 
seeks new burdens and fresh responsibilities, or longs to 
enter on new policies, with the unforeseen dangers which 
lie thick along untried paths. Every selfish motive, every 
personal interest, cried out against it. Every selfish mo- 
tive, every personal interest, urged the President to let 
the Philippines go, and, like Gallio, to care for none of 
these things. It was so easy to pass by on the other side. 
But he faced the new conditions which surged up around 
him. When others then knew little, he knew much. 
Thus he came to see what duty demanded, duty to our- 
selves and to others. Thus he came to see what the in- 
terests of the American people required. Guided by this 
sense of duty, by the spirit of the American people in the 
past, by a wise statesmanship, which looked deeply into 
the future, he boldly took the islands. Since this great 
decision his policy has been firm and consistent. lie has 
sought only what was best for the people of those islands 
and for his own people. It is all there in the record. 
Yet although he fought in his youth for liberty and union, 
he is now coarsely accused of infatuation for a vulgar 
Caesarism. He who is known to everybody as one of tiie 
kindest of men, eager to do kindly acts to every one, is 
denounced as brutal and inhuman to a distant race whom 
he has sought in every way to benefit. When every sel- 
fish interest drew him in the other direction, he has been 
charged with self-seeking for following the hard and 
thorny path of duty. 



354 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

I hesitate, Mr. President, in saying even as much as I 
have said. The President of the United States needs no 
defense at my hands. His own policy and his own acts 
in the East are his all-sufficient defense, both now and in 
history. But I have read and heard with amazement and 
regret the attacks which have been made upon the Presi- 
dent in connection with the Philippines. I am well aware 
that malignity cannot raise imbecility above contempt. 
I know that only weak minds and bad tempers mistake 
abuse for argument. I am sure that it is needless to re- 
pel attacks from such sources. But, none the less, as one 
who has followed and studied all the details of his East- 
ern policy, I wish to make public record of my admiration 
for that policy and of my belief in it. As an American 
I believe it to be at once courageous, wise, and patriotic. 
The words of criticism or of praise which we utter here 
will pass with the hour of speech, but the great facts of 
the last two years will stand. In the long process of the 
patient years, those who now assail the President with 
epithet and imputation will shrink down beyond the 
ken of even the antiquarian's microscope ; but the name 
of the President who took the Philippines and planted 
our flag at the portals of the East will stand out bright 
and clear upon the pages of history, where all men may 
read it, and he will have a monument better than any 
reared by human hands in fair and fertile islands bloom- 
ing after long neglect, and in a race redeemed from tyr- 
anny and lifted up to broadening freedom and to larger 
hopes. 

I come now to a consideration of the advantages to 
the United States involved in our acquisition and re- 
tention of the Philippine Islands, although I cannot 
hope in this respect to add to the eloquent statement 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 355 

made from personal knowledge by the Senator from Indi- 
ana. When these arguments are offered in behalf of our 
Philippine policy, the opponents of that policy stigmatize 
them as sordid. I have never been able to see why they 
were any more sordid than arguments of exactly the same 
character urged against the retention of the islands, but 
we may let that inconsistency pass as one of the familiar 
incidents of political discussion. I do not myself consider 
them sordid, for anything which involves the material in- 
terests and the general welfare of the people of the United 
States seems to me of the highest merit and the greatest 
importance. Whatever duty to others might seem to de- 
mand, I should pause long before supporting any policy if 
there were the slightest suspicion that it was not for the 
benefit of the people of the United States. I conceive my 
first duty to be always to the American people, and I have 
ever considered it the cardinal principle of American 
statesmanship to advocate policies which would operate for 
the benefit of the people of the United States, and most 
particularly for the advantage of our farmers and our > 
workingmen, upon whose well-being, and upon whose full 
employment at the highest wages, our entire fabric of 
society and government rests. In a policy which gives 
us a foothold in the East, which will open a new market 
in the Philippines, and enable us to increase our com- 
merce with China, I see great advantages to all our 
people, and more especially to our farmers and our 
workingmen. 

The disadvantages which are put forward seem to me 
unreal or at best trivial. Dark pictures are drawn of 
the enormously increased expense of the navy and of the 
army which will be necessitated by these new posses- 
sions. So far as the navy goes, our present fleet is now 



356 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

entirely inadequate for our own needs. We require many- 
more ships and many more men for the sure defense of the 
United States against foreign aggression, and our guar- 
antee of peace rests primarily upon our navy. Neither 
the possession nor the abandonment of the Philippines 
would have the slightest effect upon the size of the Navy 
of the United States. If, as I hope, we shall build up a 
navy adequate to our needs, we shall have an abundant 
force to take care of the Philippines and find employ- 
ment there in times of peace, without the addition of 
a man or a gun on account of our ownership of those 
islands. 

The Philippines will entail upon us no naval expenses 
U that we should not have in any event with a proper 
naval establishment. But the great bugbear is the army. 
Enormous sums have been stated here, all of them mere 
guesswork, to represent the increased expense to which 
we have been put by the call for troops for the Philip- 
pines. Although these statements are exaggerated, there 
can be no question that our military expenditure during 
the past year has been increased by the Philippines, be- 
cause there has been a war going on in those islands which 
demanded a large body of troops. But that war is prac- 
tically over. There is no reason to doubt that in a com- 
paratively short time peace and order will be restored, 
and when we are considering what burden the possession 
of the islands will impose upon us we must proceed upon 
the normal conditions of peace. If we should employ in 
the Philippines as many American troops, proportionately, 
as England employs in British India, we should keep there 
an army of two thousand five hundred to three thousand 
men ; but the fact that the Philippines are composed of 
scattered islands would undoubtedly necessitate the em- 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 357 

ployraent of a larger body than this. Spain found less 
than fifteen thousand men sufficient, and I think it is safe 
to say that if Spain was able to manage with fifteen thou- 
sand men, the same number of American soldiers would 
be enough to do very well what Spain did very badly. 
As to the expense involved, it seems to be entirely for- 
gotten that the islands themselves are abundantly able to 
pay for the establishment there, both civil and military. 
Under Spanish rule, with all its bad administration and 
profound corruption the islands not only paid all their ex- 
penses, but made at times at least a return to the Spanish 
treasury. With revenues well and honestly administered, 
and with wise and honest expenditure, the islands in our 
hands would not only easily pay all the expenses of the 
military establishment, but of the civil government as well, 
and we could at the same time, by our superior honesty 
and efficiency, greatly lighten the burden of taxation. In 
a word, the Philippine Islands, as we should govern and 
administer them, would be entirely self-supporting, and 
would throw no burden of expense at all on the people 
of the United States after peace and order were once 
restored and business was again flowing in its normal 
channels. 

We are also told that the possession of these islands 
brings a great responsibility upon us. This, Mr. Presi- 
dent, I freely admit. A great nation must have great 
responsibilities. It is one of the penalties of greatness. 
But the benefit of responsibilities goes hand in hand with 
the burdens they bring. The nation which seeks to escape 
from the burden also loses the benefit, and if it cowers in 
the presence of a new task and shirks a new responsibility 
the period of its decline is approaching. That fatal hour 
may draw near on leaden feet, but w?akness and timidity 



358 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

are sure signs that it is coming, be its progress swift or 
slow. These islands, I well know, impose upon us new 
and great responsibilities, and I do not doubt that we shall 
make mistakes in dealing with them before we reach com- 
plete success, but I firmly believe that they will endure to 
our lasting benefit. The athlete does not win his race by 
sitting habituallj^ in an armchair. The pioneer does not 
open up new regions to his fellow men by staying in warm 
shelter behind the city walls. A cloistered virtue is but 
a poor virtue, after all. Men who have done great things 
are those who have never shrunk from trial or adventure. 
If a man has the right qualities in him, responsibility so- 
bers, strengthens, and develops him. The same is true of 
nations. The nation which fearlessly meets its responsi- 
bilities rises to the task when the pressure is upon it. I 
believe that these new possessions and these new questions, 
this necessity for watching over the welfare of another 
people, will improve our civil service, raise the tone of 
public life, and make broader and better all our politics 
and the subjects of political discussion. My faith in the 
American people is such that I have no misgiving as to 
their power to meet these responsibilities and to come out 
stronger and better for the test, doing full justice to 
others as well as to themselves. 

So much for the objections commonly made to our 
Philippine policy, which have as little foundation, in my 
opinion, as those which proceed on the theory that we are 
engaged in the perpetration of a great wrong. Let us now 
look at the other side, and there, I believe, we shall find 
arguments in favor of the retention of the Philippines 
as possessions of great value and a source of profit to 
the people of the United States which cannot be over- 
thrown. First, as to the islands themselves. They are over 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 359 

a hundred thousand square miles in extent, and are of the\ 
greatest richness and fertility. From these islands comes j 
now the best hemp in the world, and there is no tropical/ 
product which cannot be raised there in abundance. Their 
forests are untouched, of great extent, and with a variety 
of hard woods of almost unexampled value. Gold is found 
throughout all the islands, but not in large quantities, and 
there is no indication that the production of gold could 
ever reach a very great amount. There appears to bo little 
or no silver. There are regions in Luzon containing great 
and valuable deposits of copper which have never been de- 
veloped. But the chief mineral value of the islands is in 
their undeveloped coal beds, which are known to exist in 
certain parts and are believed to exist everywhere, and 
which are certainly very extensive and rich. The coal is 
said to be lignite, and, although 20 to 30 per cent inferior 
to our coals or to those of Cardiff, is practically as good 
as the Australian coal and better than that of Japan, both 
of which are largely used in the East to-day. To a naval 
and commercial power the coal measures of the Philip- 
pines will be a source of great strength and of equally 
great value. It is sufficient for me to indicate these few 
elements of natural wealth in the islands which only await 
development. 

A much more important point is to be found in the 
markets which they furnish. The total value of exports 
and imports for 1896 amounted in round numbers to 
$29,000,000, and this was below the average. The exports 
were nearly $20,000,000, the imports a little over $9,000,- 
000. We took from the Philippines exports to the value 
of $4,308,000, next in amount to the exports to Great 
Britain ; but the Philippine Islands took from us imports 
to the value of only $94,000. There can be no doubt that 



360 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 



the islands in our peaceful possession would take from us 
a very large proportion of their imports. Even as the is- 
lands are to-day there is ojiportunity for a large absorp- 
tion of products of the United States, but it must not be 
forgotten that the islands are entirely undeveloped. The 
people consume foreign imports at the rate of only a trifle 
more than $1 per capita. With the development of the 
islands and the increase of commerce and of business ac- 
tivity the consumption of foreign imports would rapidly 
advance, and of this increase we should reap the chief 
benefit. We shall also find great profit in the work of 
developing the islands. They require railroads every- 
where. Those railroads would be planned by American 
engineers, the rails and the bridges would come from 
American mills, the locomotives and cars from American 
workshops. The same would hold true in regard to elec- 
tric railways, electric lighting, telegraphs, telephones, and 
steamships for the local business. Some indication of 
what we may fairly expect may be found in the following 
tables of our exports to, and our imports from, our new 
possessions and Cuba in 1899 as compared with 1897. 



UNITED STATES EXPORTS. 



To — 



Puerto Rico 

Cuba 

Philippines . 
Hawaii .... 

Total 



1897. 



$2,023,751 

9,308,515 

69,459 

5,478,224 



16,869,949 



1899. 



!S3,677,564 

24,861,261 

1,663,213 

11,305,581 



41,507,619 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 



361 



UNITED STATES IMPORTS. 



From- 



Puerto Rico 

Cuba 

Philippines . 
Hawaii .... 

Total 



1897. 



$1,943,251 

10,233,456 

4,352,181 

15,311,685 



37,840,573 



1899. 



$3,410,681 

29,619,759 

4,903,467 

22,188,206 



00,228,113 



By these figures it will be seen that our imports from 
the islands have increased 123,000,000 and our exports to 
them 125,000,000. The increase in exports is almost 
wholly to Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii, amounting to 
124,000,000 as against 11,000,000 increase to the Philip- 
pines. Yet the opportunity for export to the Philippines 
is larger than to all the rest put together. The fact of 
the insurrection in the former accounts of course for the 
difference, but the great increase of exports to the islands 
where peace reigns shows what may be expected of the 
Philippines when like conditions prevail there. An in- 
crease of $25,000,000 in our exports to the islands may 
strike some lofty minds as " sordid." To me that increase 
means wages and employment to a large number of Ameri- 
can farmers and workingmen, and I therefore regard it as 
of the highest beneficence and importance, and as a strik- 
ing justification of the policy which finds in our possession 
of these islands not only advantages to their inhabitants, 
but an expansion of trade which will be of profit and value 
to American labor and American industry. Thus it is 
demonstrated that we should gain in the Philippines them- 
selves, under normal and peaceful conditions and with 
the growing prosperity which our control would bring, a 



362 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

market of very great value to the workingmen, the oper- 
atives, and the farmers of the United States. 

But the value of the Philippine Islands, both natural and 
acquired, and as a market for our products, great as it 
undoubtedly is, and greater as it unquestionably will be, 
is trifling compared to the indirect results which will flow 
from our possession of them. From the time of the war 
between China and Japan it became apparent that great 
changes were impending in the East, changes which many 
economists and publicists believed would play the master 
part in the history of the next century. The struggle for 
the world's trade, which has for many years been shaping 
\ ever more strongly the politics and the history of mankind, 
i has its richest prize set before it in thejvast^m.arkets.of 
■ China. Every great nation has recognized the impor- 
tance of this prize, either by the acquisition of Chinese 
territory or by obtaining certain rights and privileges 
through treaty. But after the war between China and 
Japan this movement rapidly assumed an acute form. It 
grew daily more apparent that Russia was closing in upon 
the Chinese Empire, and that her policy, at once slow and 
persistent, aimed at nothing less than the exclusion of other 
nations from the greatest market of the w^orld. To us, 
with our increasing population, and an agricultural and 
industrial production which was advancing by leaps and 
bounds, the need of new markets in the very near future, 
if we hoped to maintain full employment and ample re- 
turns to our farmers and our workingmen, was very clear. 
More than ready to take our chance in a fair field against 
all rivals, and with full faith in the indomitable ingenuity 
and enterprise of our people, it was more than ever im- 
portant that we should not be shut out from any market 
by unjust or peculiar discriminations if by any methods 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 3G3 

such a misfortune could be avoided. Tlie great danger to 
our interests in China became clearer and clearer, as the 
months went by, to those who watched the progress of great 
economic and political forces outside our own boundaries. 
I do not think that there were many who did so, but I re- 
member very well that some time before the Spanish War 
the senior Senator from Colorado pointed out in a public 
interview the importance of the Chinese question and the 
necessity that would soon be upon us of taking some steps 
in conjunction with England and Japan, and very prob- 
ably with Germany and with France, in order to prevent 
our exclusion from that empire by the great power of the 
north which was closing down upon it. There were others 
who felt in the same way, although I do not think they 
were very numerous ; but I am quite sure that nobody saw 
very clearly hiasc^ we were to assert in the East our rights 
and interests, which were so important to the welfare o^ 
our agriculture and our industry. That Hawaii was ne-l 
cessary as the first and essential step toward our obtaining 
that share to which we were entitled in the trade of the 
Pacific, the ocean of the future, was obvious enough, but i 
beyond that all was doubt and darkness. Then came the ' 
Spanish War, and the smoke of Dewey's guns had hardly 
cleared away when it was seen by those who were watch- 
ing that he had not only destroyed the Spanish fleet, but^ 
had given to his countrymen the means of solving their' 
problem in the far East. He had made us an Eastern 
power. He had given us not only the right to speak, but , 
the place to speak from. 

Let me now try to show the importance and meaning 
of the Eastern question, with regard to which Dewey's 
victory has given us such a commanding position. The 
Empire of China has a population of which we have no 



364 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

accurate statistics, but which is certainly over four hundred 
millions. The rate of consumption among the Chinese 
per capita is at present low, but even as it stands it affords 
a great market for foreign imports. The work of opening 
up the country by railroads and of developing its still un- 
touched natural resources has begun, and is advancing 
with giant strides. There is the greatest opportunity in 
China for trade expansion which exists anywhere in the 
world. I desire to call the attention of the Senate to the 
value of the Chinese trade to us now despite our neglect 
of it, and to the enormous advance which that trade has 
made in the last four years, and moi-e especially since the 
Spanish War carried our flag into the East and turned the 
attention of our people more sharply to the unlimited op- 
portunities for commerce which there exist. 

In our commerce with China during 1889-99 there was 
a gain of ^13,293,168. The increase occurred almost en- 
tirely in the export trade, which advanced from -12, 791, 128 
in 1889 to $14,493,440 in 1899. Our imports for 1899, 
amounting to 118,619,268, were only slightly larger than 
in 1889, when a value of 117,028,412 was reported. The 
exports to China, like those to Japan, showed an excep- 
tional growth in 1897, 1898, and 1899, the records for 
these years being f 11,924,433, 19,992,894, and 114,493,- 
440, respectively. Our trade with the port of Hongkong, 
although less important than that credited directly with 
China, was nearly doubled during 1898-99, making a 
gain of -f 5, 045, 149. The exports for 1899 had a value of 
$7,732,525 as compared with only $3,686,384 for 1889. 
The imports were considerably smaller and showed marked 
fluctuations. In 1889 they were valued at $1,480,266, 
but these figures were not equaled again until 1899, when 
a value of $2,479,274 was recorded. From these figures 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 365 

it will be seen that our exports to China and Hongkong 
in 1899 were over 122,000,000, and that the growth in the 
last three years had been phenomenal. The gain in ex- 
ports to China, Hongkong, and Japan in 1899 over 1889 
was 256 per cent, and it almost all came in the last years 
of the decade. 

I will not take the time of the Senate in analyzing these 
figures and showing the different articles of export which 
make up these totals. That has all been most admirably 
done in the bulletin of the Department of Agriculture 
prepared by Mr. Hitchcock upon our trade with China, 
Japan, and Hongkong. I have not touched upon our trade 
with Japan at all, but I would strongly recommend a study 
of this bulletin, which shows how much our possession of 
the Philippines and our increased interests in the East 
have stimulated our trade with that country. There are 
two points, however, to which I wish to call especial atten- 
tion, because they emphasize and demonstrate the great 
value to our farming and manufacturing interests of this 
vast Chinese market into which we are just entering. In 
1898 we sent nearly four million dollars' worth of wheat 
flour to Hongkong alone, while to China we sent #5,203,427 
woi'th of cotton manufactures in the same year and over 
19,000,000 worth, as compared with only #2,854,221 worth 
for 1894. These are illustrations in two leading articles 
of what the Chinese market means to the Western growers 
of wheat and to the manufacturers of cotton. Nearly all 
these cotton manufactures came from the South, and have 
been to our Southern mills a source of great profit, while 
at the same time they have relieved the pressure upon the 
domestic market, and are thus a direct benefit to every 
cotton factory in New England or in any other part of the 
country. Ex j)ede HerculemI From these two items as 



366 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

well as from the long lists of Mr. Hitchcock, we can judge 
what the trade of China is to us to-day and what it is des- 
tined to be. The loss of that market and of its prospects 
and possibilities I should regard as one of the greatest 
calamities which could befall the farmers and the work- 
ing-men of the United States. How, then, are we to hold 
and develop it? Look at your tables of statistics and note 
the increases which have occurred since the capture of 
Manila. The mere fact that we hold the Philippine 
Islands increases our trade with all the East — with China 
and Japan alike. Trade certainly has followed the flag, 
and its appearance at Manila has been the signal for this 
marked growth in our commerce with the neighboring 
states and empires. 

But we must go a step further. Having this opportu- 
nity to obtain a large and increasing share in the trade of 
China, how shall we make sure that it is not taken from 
us ? We know well that China is threatened by Kussia, 
and that Kussian dominion, if unrestrained, would mean 
discrimination and exclusion in the Chinese markets. 
Sooner than any one dreamed it has been shown how far 
the Philippines have solved this pressing problem for us. 
The possession of the Philippines made us an Eastern 
power, with the right and, what was equally important, 
the force behind the right to speak. Mr. Hay, as Secre- 
tary of State, has obtained from all the great powers of 
Europe their assent to our demand for the guaranty of all 
our treaty rights in China and for the maintenance of the 
policy of the open door. I do not belittle one of the most 
important and most brilliant diplomatic achievements in 
our hundred years of national existence when I say that 
the assent of these other powers to the propositions of the 
United States was given to the master of Manila. They 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 367 

might liave turned us aside three years ago with a shrug and 
a smile, but to the power which held Manila Bay, and whose 
fleet floated upon its waters, they were obliged to give a 
gracious answer. Manila, with its magnificent bay, is the 
prize and the pearl of the East. In our hands it will be- 
come one of the greatest distributing points, one of the 
richest emporiums of the world's commerce. Rich in itself, 
with all its fertile islands behind it, it will keep open to us 
the markets of China, and enable American entei'prise and 
intelligence to take a master share in all the trade of the 
Orient. We have been told that arguments like these 
are sordid. Sordid, indeed! Then what arguments are 
worthy of consideration ? A policy which proposes to 
open wider markets to the people of the United States, 
to add to their employment, and to increase their wages, 
and which in its pursuit requires that we should save the 
teeming millions of China from the darkness of the Rus- 
sian winter, and keep them free, not merely for the in- 
coming of commerce, but for the entrance of the light of 
Western civilization, seems to me a great and noble policy, 
if there ever was such, and one which may well engage 
the best aspirations and the highest abilities of American 
statesmanship. 

Thus, Mr. President, I have shown that duty and in- 
terest alike, duty of the highest kind and interest of the 
highest and best kind, impose upon us the retention of the 
Philippines, the development of the islands, and the expan- 
sion of our Eastern commerce. All these things, in my be- 
lief, will come to pass, whatever the divisions of the present 
moment ; for no people who have come under our flag have 
ever sought to leave it, and there is no territory which we 
have acquired that any one would dream of giving up. 
All our vast growth and expansion have been due to the 



368 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

spirit of our race, and have been guided by the instinct of 
the American people, which in all great crises has proved 
wiser than any reasoning. This mighty movement west- 
ward, building up a nation and conquering a continent as 
it swept along, has not been the work of chance or acci- 
dent. It was neither chance nor accident which brought 
us to the Pacific and which has now carried us across the 
gi'eat ocean even to the shores of Asia, to the very edge 
of the cradle of the Aryans, whence our far distant ances- 
tors started on the march which has since girdled the 
world. 

Call up your own history as witness. It was not inev- 
itable that we should take Louisiana. We could have 
remained shut up between the Mississippi and the Atlan- 
tic and allowed another people to build the great city where 
New Orleans stands. But it was inevitable, if we followed 
the true laws of our being, that we should be masters of 
the Mississippi and spread from its mouth to its source. 
It was not inevitable that the union of States should en- 
dure. Had we so chosen we could have abandoned it, 
but if we had abandoned it we should have gone down 
to nothingness, a disintegrated chaos of petty republics. 
We determined that the Union should live, and then it 
was inevitable that it should come to what it is to-day. 
There was nothing inevitable about the Monroe Doctrine. 
We need never have asserted it, need never have main- 
tained it. Had we failed to do both we should have had 
Europe established all about us; we should have been 
forced to become a nation of great standing armies ; our 
growth and power would have been choked and stifled. 
But we have declared and upheld it. We have insisted 
that all the world should heed it, and it is one of the signs 
of the times that in The Hague Convention we have ob- 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 369 

tained at last a formal recognition of it from all the na- 
tions of Europe. Yet the Monroe Doctrine is far more 
than a proposition of international law which we have 
laid down. Millions of men are ready to fight for that 
doctrine who could not define its terms, and who have 
never read, perhaps, the famous message which announced 
it. That is because the instinct of the people recognizes 
in that doctrine a great principle of national life. With- 
out clinging to it we should be in constant peril, our evo- 
lution would be retarded, our existence menaced. The 
European power which attempts to establish itself in new 
possessions in the Americas, whether on a little island or 
in a continental state, from Patagonia to the Rio Grande, 
is our enemy. AVe are ready to fight upon that " theme 
until our eyelids do no longer wag." Is it because we 
want territory to the south of us ? Far from it. It is 
because we know by instinct that it is a law of our being, 
a principle of our national life, that no power from over 
seas shall come into this hemisphere to thwart our policy 
or to cross our path. The Monroe Doctrine, with all it 
implies, is inevitable if we are to be true to the laws of 
our being. 

Like every great nation, we have come more than once 
in our history to where the road of fate divided. Thus 
far we have never failed to take the right path. Again 
are we come to the parting of the ways. Again a mo- 
mentous choice is offei*ed to us. Shall we hesitate and 
make, in coward fashion, what Dante calls " the great re- 
fusal " ? Even now we can abandon the Monroe Doc- 
trine, we can reject the Pacific, we can shut ourselves up 
between our oceans, as Switzerland is inclosed among her 
hills, and then it would be inevitable that we should sink 
out from among the great powers of the world and heap 



370 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

up riches that some stronger and bolder people, who do 
not fear their fate, might gather them. Or we may fol- 
low the true laws of our being, the laws in obedience to 
which we have come to be what we are, and then we shall 
stretch out into the Pacific ; we shall stand in the front 
rank of the world powers ; we shall give to our labor and 
our industry new and larger and better opportunities ; 
we shall prosper ourselves ; we shall benefit mankind. 
What we have done was inevitable because it was in ac- 
cordance with the laws of our being as a nation, in the 
defiance and disregard of which lie ruin and retreat. 

I know well the objections which are made to this theory 
of national life. I have heard much criticism upon the 
word " inevitable " as applied to our movement into the 
far East. Still more censure has been directed against 
our familiar phrase of " manifest destiny." It has been 
intimated that it is the tyrant's and the robber's plea, the 
coward's excuse, and the hypocrite's pretense to say that 
these events which have taken place since 1898 were in- 
evitable. Such criticism proceeds on what seems to me 
a total misconception. I should be the last to deny the 
doctrine of free will, but I believe most profoundly that 
when certain conditions are given, certain results are sure 
to come. I believe this because I believe in the reign of 
law. We stand like children on the seashore, knowing 
only the shells and the pebbles where we tread, under- 
standing only the ripple of the waves breaking at our feet, 
while far away before us stretches the great ocean of 
knowledge, whose confines we cannot see, and whose pos- 
sessions we can only dimly guess. We catalogued the 
visible stars and then photographed the heavens, only to 
find far beyond the bodies which the most powerful tele- 
scopes can disclose myriads of stars and systems glimmer- 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 371 

ing away into infinite space. What they are, what other 

worlds than ours there may be, we do not know, but we 

have learned that they move in obedience to law. When 

science demonstrates its theories, it tells us little more than 

that — 

The spangled heavens a shining frame, 
Their great original proclaim. 

The doctrine of the old theologians and schoolmen that 
the universe was all made for man, is no more vain and 
arrogant than the assertion that man is too insignificant 
to find place in the great system of universal law. The 
same laws which govern the movements of the uncounted 
stars in space, tint the wings of the moth so that his keen- 
eyed enemy cannot distinguish him from the dead leaf 
or the roughened bark, and paint the little sand spider so 
cunningly that unless he move his most virulent pursuer 
would not know that he was not part of the glittering 
grains among which he hides. If we assume a system 
capable of regulating the stars in their courses, it must 
be one equally able to color the moth or hide the spider. If 
there is a controlling law, it must be one which grasps the 
infinitely little as well as the infinitely great, for any other 
would be limited and finite. If we say with reverence, 
as the greatest of poets said, that we are in the care of 
Him " who doth the ravens feed ; yea, providently caters 
for the sparrow," are we to suppose that nations alone 
are not subject to law? Are we to believe it possible that 
the races of men go stumbling blindly through the centuries, 
the playthings of chance, the helpless victims of their own 
passions? 

Science has revealed the immense antiquity of man, 
and has demonstrated that through aeons of time the race 
has been migrating hither and thither, shifting and chang- 



372 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

ing, developing civilizations which have perished off the 
face of the earth, leaving only dumb symbols carved on 
stone, or hardened bones which the rock alone preserves. 
Yet were they always moving, these long- vanished people, 
always striving, always rising up or sinking down in obe- 
dience to unknown, inexorable laws which governed alike 
their growth and their decay. There seems to have been 
a process of evolution governed by law, which ruled them 
and their fate ; that at least we have reason to believe, even 
if we are still too ignorant to understand and state the laws 
which govern us. 

Then history takes up the wondrous tale, and the whole 
effort of modern research is in the passionate demand that 
she reveal to us the laws which have ruled in the short 
period over which she holds sway. That there were laws 
we feel sure, and very slowly, very dimly, we are begin- 
ning, as we believe, to discern what they were. We detect 
them in the migrations of tribes and races ; we can see 
their operations in the rise and fall of nations and empires. 
One people fades out of existence ; another grows, and 
climbs, and inherits the earth. Very far removed as it is 
from an exact science, history still teaches clearly enough 
that the evolution of nations depends upon laws of their 
being, which, if obeyed, lead in one direction, if disobeyed 
are replaced by others which will carry the disobedient to 
a widely different fate. I believe, therefore, that men 
and nations are, like all else in the universe, the subjects 
of laws ; that if they obey the laws of their being and fol- 
low them rightly they will succeed ; that if they violate 
these laws they fall the victims of others equally powerful, 
and go down to failure and dishonor. 

I do not believe that this nation was an accident. I do 
not believe that it is the creation of blind chance. I have 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 373 

faith that it has a great mission in the world — a mis- 
sion of good, a mission of freedom. I believe that it can 
live up to that mission ; thei-efore I want to see it step 
forward boldly and take its place at the head of the nations. 
I wish to see it master of the Pacific. I would have 
it fulfill what I think is its manifest destiny, if it is not 
false to the laws which govern it. I am not dreaminjr of 
a primrose path. I know well that in the past we have 
committed grievous mistakes and paid for them, done 
wrong and made heavy compensation for it, stumbled and 
fallen and suffered. But we have always risen, bruised 
and grimed sometimes, yet still we have risen stronger 
and more erect than ever, and the march has always been 
forward and onward. Onward and forward it will still 
be, despite stumblings and mistakes as before, while we 
are true to ourselves and obedient to the laws which have 
ruled our past and will still govern our future. But when 
we begin to distrust ourselves, to shrink from our own 
greatness, to shiver before the responsibilities which come 
to us, to retreat in the face of doubts and difficulties, then 
indeed jjeril will be near at hand. I would have our great 
nation always able to say : — 

It matters not how strait the gate, 
How charged with punishments the scroll, 

I am the master of my fate, 
I am the captain of my soul. 

I have unbounded faith and j^i'ide in my country. I 
am proud of her past, and in that past I read her future. 
I do not read it in any vain or boastful temper, but with 
a spirit of reverence and gratitude for all that has gone, 
and with a very humble prayer that we may make the 
present and future worthy of the past. 



SPEECH AT CANTON, OHIO, NOTIFYING 
PRESIDENT McKINLEY OF HIS SECOND 
NOMINATION FOR THE PRESIDENCY BY 
THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVEN- 
TION AT PHILADELPHIA, JUNE 19, 1900. 

JULY 12, 1900. 



SPEECH AT CANTON, OHIO, NOTIFYING 
PKESIDENT McKINLEY OF PIIS SECOND 
NOMINATION FOK THE PRESIDENCY. 



Mr. President: This Committee, representing every 
State in the Union and the organized Territories of the 
United States, was duly appointed to announce to you 
formally your nomination by the Kepublican National 
Convention, which met in Philadelphia June 10 last, as 
the candidate of the Republican party for President of 
the United States for the term beginning March 4, 1901. 

To be selected by the Republican party as their candi- 
date for this great office is always one of the highest honors 
which can be given to any man. This nomination, however, 
comes to you, sir, under circumstances which give it a 
higher significance and make it an even deeper expression 
of honor and trust than usual. You were nominated 
unanimously at Philadelphia. You received the unforced 
vote of every delegate from every state and every territory. 
The harmony of sentiment which appears on the face of 
the record was but the reflection of the deeper harmony 
which existed in the hearts and minds of the delegates. 
Without faction, without dissent, with profound satisfaction 
and eager enthusiasm you were nominated for the presi- 
dency by the vinited voice of the representatives of our 
great party, in which there is neither sign of division nor 
shadow of turning. Such unanimity, always remarkable, 



378 SPEECH AT CANTON, OHIO. 

is here the more impressive because it accompanies a 
second nomination to the great office which you have held 
for four years. It is not the facile triumph of hope over ex- 
perience, but the sober approval of conduct and character 
tested in many trials and tried by heavy and extraordinary 
responsibilities. 

With the exception of the period in which "Washington 
organized the nation and built the state, and of those 
other awful years when Lincoln led his people through 
the agony of civil war and saved from destruction the work 
of Washington, there has never been a presidential term 
in our history so crowded with great events, so filled with 
new and momentous questions, as that which is now draw- 
ing to its end. True to the declarations which were made 
at St. Louis in 1896, you, sir, united with the Republicans 
in Congress in the revision of the tariff and the reestab- 
lishment of the protective policy. You maintained our 
credit and upheld the gold standard, leading the party by 
your advice to the passage of the great measure which 
is to-day the bulwark of both. You led again in the policy 
which has made Hawaii a possession of the United States. 
On all these questions you fulfilled the hopes and justi- 
fied the confidence of the people, who four years ago 
put trust in our promises. But on all these questions 
you had as guides not only your own principles, the well- 
considered results of years of training and reflection, but 
also the plain declarations of the National Convention 
which nominated you in 1896. Far different was it when 
the Cuban question, which we had also promised to settle, 
brought first war, then peace, with Spain. Congress de- 
clared war, but you, as Commander-in-Chief, had to carry 
it on. You did so, and history records unbroken victory 
from the first shot of the Nashville to the day when the 



SPEECH AT CANTON, OHIO. 379 

protocol was signed. The peace you had to make alone. 
Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines ; you had to assume 
alone the responsibility of taking them all from Spain. 
Alone and weighted with the terrible responsibility of the 
unchecked war powers of the Constitution, you were 
obliged to govern these islands, and to repress rebellion 
and disorder in the Philippines. No party creed defined 
the course you were to follow. Courage, foresight, com- 
prehension of American interest, now and in the un- 
charted future, faith in the American people and in their 
fitness for great tasks, were your only guides and coun- 
selors. Thus you framed and put in operation this great 
new policy which has made us at once masters of the 
Antilles and a great Eastern power, holding firmly our 
possessions on both sides of the Pacific. 

The new and strange ever excite fear, and the courage 
and prescience which accept them always arouse criticism 
and attack. Yet a great departure and a new policy were 
never more quickly justified than these undertaken by you. 
On the possession of the Philippines rests the admirable 
diplomacy which warned all nations that American trade 
was not to be shut out of China. It is to Manila that we 
owe the ability to send troops and ships to the defense of 
our ministers, our consuls, our missionaries, and our mer- 
chants in China, instead of being compelled to leave our 
citizens to the casual protection of other powers, as would 
have been unavoidable had we flung the Philippines away. 
Rest assured, sir, that the vigorous measures which you 
have thus been enabled to take, and all further measures 
in the same direction which you may take, for the protec- 
tion of American lives and property, will receive the hearty 
support of the people of the United States, who are now, 
as always, determined that the American citizen shall be 



380 SPEECH AT CANTON, OHIO. 

protected at any cost In all his rights everywhere and at 
all times. It is to Manila again, to our fleet in the bay 
and our army on the land, that we shall owe the power, 
when these scenes of blood in China are closed, to exact 
reparation, to enforce stern justice, and to insist in the 
final settlement upon an open door to all that vast market 
for our fast growing commerce. Events moving with 
terrible rapidity have been swift witnesses to the wisdom 
of your action in the East. The Philadelphia Conven- 
tion has adopted your policy both in the Antilles and in 
the Philippines, and has made it that of the Republican 
party. 

Your election, sir, next November, assures to us the 
continuance of that policy abroad and in our new posses- 
sions. To intrust these difficult and vital questions to 
other hands, at once incompetent and hostile, would be a 
disaster to us and a still more unrelieved disaster to our 
posterity. Your election also means not only protection 
to our industries but the maintenance of a sound currency 
and of the gold standard, the very corner stones of our 
economic and financial welfare. Should they be shaken, 
as they would be by the success of our opponents, the 
whole fabric of our business confidence and prosperity 
would fall into ruin. Your defeat would be the signal 
for the advance of free trade, for the anarchy of a de- 
based and unstable currency, for business panic, depres- 
sion and hard times, and for the wreck of our foreign 
policy. Your election and the triumph of the Republican 
party — which we believe to be as sure as the coming of 
the day — will make certain the steady protection of our 
industries, sound money, and a vigorous and intelligent 
foreign policy. They will continue those conditions of 
good government and wise legislation so essential to the 



SPEECH AT CANTON, OHIO. 381 

prosperity and well-being which have blessed our country 
so abundantly during the past four years. 

Thus announcing to you, sir, your nomination as the 
Republican candidate for the presidency, we have the 
honor also to submit to you the declaration of principles 
made by the National Convention, which we trust will re- 
ceive your approval. We can assure you of the faithful and 
earnest support of the Republican party in every state, 
and we beg you to believe that it is with feelings of the 
deepest personal gratification that we discharge here to-day 
this honorable duty imposed upon us by the Convention. 



SPEECH AT THE INAUGURATION OF 
HENRY S. PRITCHETT AS PRESIDENT 
OF THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE 
OF TECHNOLOGY. 

OCTOBER 24, 1900. 



SPEECH AT THE INAUGURATION OF HENRY 
S. PRITCHETT AS PRESIDENT OF THE 
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECH- 
NOLOGY. 



I FEEL much honored in being permitted to take part 
in these inaugural ceremonies. It is a privilege which I 
highly appreciate, and which gratifies me both on public 
and private grounds. I am glad to share in this occasion, 
so important to the Institute of Technology, in which, in 
common with all citizens of Massachusetts, I feel so much 
pride. It is a personal gratification also to escape for a 
moment from the heat and turmoil of a political campaign, 
where there is much distortion of facts, into the cool, calm 
atmosphere of science and learning. Pleasant, too, is it 
for the much criticised to have the rare opportunity of 
speaking to some of his critics, for the often lectured to 
stand for a moment in the place of the lecturer. 

The act which you perform to-day is one of grave im- 
portance, and it is the significance of that act which I 
would fain make the theme of the few words I shall say. 
You are about to inaugurate formally a new President of 
the Institute. Very fortunate is that man to whom it is 
thus given to stand at the head of a great institution of 
learning ; for to him have come those things which are 
most to be desired by strong men, — work worth doing and a 
great opportunity. He is a builder; he is shaping the 



386 HENRY S. PRITCHETT. 

unknown future. Nothing can be finer than this, for it 
is far better to create than to destroy. To him is confided 
in part the young life of the country. Presidents and 
professors grow old and pass away, the catalogue length- 
ens, and great names shine out upon it as the stars begin 
to burn in the heavens after the setting of the sun ; his- 
tory and traditions gather as the years flit past ; the walls 
of the buildings grow gray and mellow beneath the touch 
of time ; but the college itself is ever young. Eternal 
youth is always there, as the succeeding generations come 
and go. To the president of the college or the institute 
falls the task of moulding aud leading all these young 
lives marching along in unending procession. He is their 
chief, their leader, their captain. It is a responsibility 
as noble as it is great. Napoleon said, " I have no bad 
regiments : I have some bad colonels " ; and, as a bad 
colonel ruins a regiment, so a bad president can turn awry 
the whole life of a college, and thus affect for ill the fu- 
ture of his country. 

In some respects the duties of the head of any great in- 
stitution of learning have changed with the vast growth 
of our colleges and universities. He is no longer prima- 
rily a preacher or an instructor. He must be, first of all, 
a leader of men and an administrator. He no longer is 
himself a teacher ; but he must, like Bacon, take all learn- 
ing for his province, and provide that in every branch 
and in every department there shall be the best teaching 
and the most skilled masters. In another respect, and 
that the most important, the highest duty of the instruc- 
tor of youth is the same now as it has always been, and 
falls alike upon all who teach, from the schoolmaster 
among his boys to the chief of the great university. This 
highest duty is not easy to define. No laws prescribe it, 



HENRY S. PRITCIIETT. 387 

no formulas explain it. It is the influence which the 
chief exerts, the tone he gives, the spirit he inspires, the 
impression he makes. Vague as it is, however, it carries 
with it in its fulfillment all the difference between success 
and failure. Impalpable and unseen, it is yet as necessary 
to the life of a college as the air of heaven is to our physi- 
cal life. The powerful rhyme of the poet outlasts the 
gilded monument of princes, habits of thought endure 
through centuries which sweep away the mightiest build- 
ings raised by men ; and so the personal influence of the 
leader is felt throughout the lives of those whom he has 
led in the first flush of their youth. 

There were tones in the voice that whispered then 
You may hear to-day in a hundred men. 

That which is beyond the ken of book-lore or microscope 
lies in the personal influence of the commander. The 
soldiers may be all equally well drilled, they may be armed 
and uniformed alike, of the same quality of blood and 
race and courage ; and yet one regiment will cast itself 
into the imminent and deadly breach, carrying all before 
it in a victorious charge, while another loiters and hesitates. 
There are no bad regiments : there are some bad colonels. 
From a college or an institute students may go forth filled 
with the spirit of their time and country, ready and eager 
for battle, the light of hope and victory in their eyes, or 
they may come out into the world's strife doubters, critics, 
scoffers, fault-finders, fit only to linger in the plain while 
their comrades scale the hciirhts. It is not the winnins: 
or the losing that is important, but fighting the good fight in 
the great world of action. The men who have eauglit the 
inspiration of the real leader may plant their flag upon 
the ramparts or they may let — 



388 HENRY S. PRITCHETT. 

The victors when they come, 
When the forts of folly fall, 
Find their bodies at the wall. 

In either event the world is better for their having lived 
in it ; and as for the other sort, who never charge at all, 
but merely know how the charge ought to have been made, 
it matters little whether they have lived or not. 

What, then, are the vital qualifications for the leaders 
of American youth ? They are four, I think, — high 
character, ample learning, proved executive capacity, and 
the training and experience of a man of the world in the 
best and broadest sense. As to the first three requi- 
sites, all persons will, I think, agree. The need of the 
last qualification is not, perhaps, quite so obvious ; yet it 
is absolutely essential if the head of the great institution 
of learning is to imbue his students with the right s]Dirit, 
and send them out to play in the world a part worth 
playing. Every great position has its peculiar perils and 
temptations. To this rule, and I say this with the utmost 
deference to those I see about me, the presidents of col- 
leges and institutes are no excejDtion. The dangers to 
be shunned by men holding these great and responsible 
offices is the conviction, which easily arises, that the col- 
lege world is the whole world, and that university and 
universe are interchangeable terms. It is a grave misfor- 
tune to the country as well as to the institution itself when 
the onlooker, turning to its chief for precept and example, 
is reminded of Pope's satire, and cannot refrain from 
murmuring to himself : — 

Like Cato give his little Senate laws, 

And sit attentive to his own applause. 

Who would not laugh if such a man there be ? 

Who would not weep if Atticus were he ? 



HENRY S. PRITCHETT. 389 

When Intolerance or narrow views possess the chief, it 
is certain that the spirit and the tone impressed upon the 
students under his care will not be the riirht ones. Their 
critical faculties may be sharpened, but their enthusiasm 
and hopes will be chilled. Their self-complacency will 
undoubtedly be enhanced, but their effectiveness will be 
sadly diminished. 

An experience in the world of men and in large affairs 
is the surest armor against this dangerous and hurtful 
frame of mind. In the world-school any being not wholly 
dense learns that difference of opinion does not necessa- 
rily mean that he who differs from one is either knave or 
fool, or both. To any open-minded man experience in the 
great arena of action brings understanding, if he is of 
the right fibre, of the life of the time and of sympathy 
with it. He comes from that teaching to feel with Fra 
Lippo Lippi that this world is not a blot or blank, but 
means intensely, and means good. 

Let me turn from general propositions to a concrete 
illustration of my meaning. In the gentleman whom you 
inaugurate to-day as President of your great Institution of 
Technology, the high qualifications which I have enumer- 
ated as necessary for such a place all meet in happy com- 
bination. He has high character, generous learning, an 
assured place in the domain of science. He has proved 
his executive capacity by his successful administration of a 
great government survey. He has lived in the world of 
men, labored with them, fought against them, learned that 
liberality and toleration are not incompatible with an un- 
flinching opposition to wrong, learned also to do justice to 
opponents, become convinced that it is better to get the 
best possible than to prate idly about an impossible per- 
fection, find fault perpetually and get nothing. The ig- 



390 HENRY S. PRITCHETT. 

norance of the cloister can never dim the knowledge thus 
acquired, nor harsh and narrow prejudices warp a judgment 
which, while it is keen, is also just. He brings to your 
service and to the broader service of Massachusetts and 
of the country all these high qualities. He will send forth 
his students imbued with his own faith and hope, in har- 
mony with the spirit of the time of America. No man, 
I am sure, will rival him in devotion to his charge or in 
his admiration for it. But he will not forget that the lit- 
tle world he guides and rules is part of the greater world 
of the United States, borne on the mighty current of the 
national life as the tides of the ocean bear the ship, and 
that he who serves the country best, in training her sons, 
best serves the noble institution committed to his care. 



SPEECH BEFORE THE REPUBLICAN STATE 
CONVENTION OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

APRIL 10, 1908. 



SPEECH BEFORE THE REPUBLICAN STATE 
CONVENTION OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

April 10, 1908. 



Mr. Chairman: I have ventured to ask the privilege 
of the floor, in order that I may say to the convention that 
it is my earnest hope that the platform which has been 
unanimously reported by your committee on resolutions 
may be adopted without amendment and without addition. 
I think it must be obvious to every one that the committee 
on resolutions has endeavored to settle the controversies 
which have arisen among us, by a statement which should 
recognize existing facts, which should involve no sacrifice 
of principle on either side, and which nevertheless will 
make for harmony and for the welfare of the party. 

I reveal no secret when I say that we owe this settle- 
ment to the wisdom, the patience, the self-control, and the 
devotion to the interests of the Republican party, of the 
committee of the Taf t League and of my distinguished col- 
league now on the platform [referring to Senator Crane]. 
As one Massachusetts Republican, I wish to express my 
obligations to them all. 

If you will permit me, — and I think the importance of 
the occasion may, perhaps, justify it, — I am going to ask 
again for the indulgence, which the state conventions of 



394 REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION. 

Massachusetts have so often accorded to me, to speak to 
you for a few moments upon the situation which has arisen. 
I should like you to know why it is that the acting governor 
of the Commonwealth, and myself and others who feel 
with us, have taken the position that we are well known 
to have held in the settlement of those controversies which 
had unfortunately arisen. 

I think — if I may say one single word of myself — that 
the Republicans of Massachusetts know me well enough 
to be aware that I am not timid in political strife and that 
I do not shrink from the conflicts of politics. I have 
tried to do my share for many years in fighting the battles 
of the party in this State. I have not been accused of 
being too mild. There have even been those who thought 
I was, perhaps, too combative. But I will say this, at least, 
— that, if I have not given quarter in some of our politi- 
cal debates before the people, I never asked for any; and 
therefore I think I shall not be misunderstood in what I 
am about to say. I welcome the conflicts which we have 
with the opposition. I am always ready to do what I can 
to sustain the principles of the Republican party in every 
campaign. I have done this for many years. While 
health and strength are accorded to me — if you continue 
to me the confidence you have given me so long, I shall 
try always to do my share. But I never had much love 
for conflicts within the party, and as I have grown older 
I have lost all taste for them. I do not covet any victory 
over a fellow Republican, and therefore I welcome the 
settlement which has been made here to-day. 

I know that our agreement will disappoint our common 
enemy — and I use the adjective in no offensive sense. 
They have been filling the air with predictions of the dis- 
ruption of the Republican party. They have been win- 



REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION. 395 

ning elections, as they usually do, in April. But they 
have overlooked the fact that we like liberty and law and 
order in our conventions; that the principles of Spring- 
field — I do not refer to the city itself, but to the late con- 
vention there — that the principles of the late Springfield 
convention have never found a lodgment with us. And 
they have also overlooked the fact that the Republican 
party has a great deal of intelligence. Perhaps they are 
even less familiar with that quality than with the others. 
I am glad to disappoint them, but I tliink that the result 
here attained ought also to gratify every Republican who 
loves his party and who believes that its success is for 
the best interests of the great country to which our first 
love is given. I would never sacrifice principle to any- 
thing. But I cherish the union and harmony which have 
marked Massachusetts Republican politics for these many 
years, and I would make many sacrifices to maintain 
them. 

We have had many contests among ourselves — whole- 
some, honest contests, necessary to the life of a vigorous 
party; but we have had no bitter factions such as tear a party 
asunder and lead it to defeat at the polls. In 1893 I took 
my seat in the Senate of the United States. There was a 
Democratic President, a Democratic Senate, a Democratic 
House. There was a Democratic governor in Massachu- 
setts, and there were five Democratic congressmen in her 
body of representation. In that year we redeemed the 
State and elected a Republican governor, and at the next 
election only one Democratic congressman went from Mas- 
sachusetts to Washington. In 1896 we swept the country 
and put a Republican President in the White House and 
a Republican Speaker in the chair of the House of Re- 
presentatives. From the day of the election of McKinley 



396 REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION. 

down to the present time the course of the national party 
has been one of uninterrupted success, until to-day the 
Senate of the United States, which is the sure index of 
party power, covering, as it does, with its long term of 
service a period of years, shows sixty-one Republican sen- 
ators out of ninety-two. 

We know what the record of Massachusetts has been in 
that time — unbroken victory, with one single exception, 
an exception which never comes to my mind without a 
feeling of bitter regret. One of the ablest, one of the 
best, one of the most courageous governors' that the State 
ever had was without reason, and wholly unjustifiably, as 
I believe, defeated. If we had respected him and honored 
him when he held his high office, the cheerful courage 
and manliness with which he accepted unmerited and un- 
deserved defeat have made him stand higher in the opin- 
ion of every Massachusetts man. Within a week he has 
laid the Republicans of Massachusetts again under his 
debt by an act of complete unselfishness, by an act of de- 
votion to the party in the interest of party success and 
party harmony which the Republicans of Massachusetts 
will not forget. 

Now, Mr, President, during all that period we have had 
the power and the conditions I have described. There 
have been no conflicts in the delegation at Washington. 
There has been no strife between senators, there has been 
none between representatives, and there has been none be- 
tween senators and representatives. We have always 
presented there in all these years the agreeable spectacle 
of a delegation from the State of Massachusetts absolutely 
united in the interests of the State. We have differed 
occasionally, as men must differ ; but we have never had 
* Governor John L. Bates. 



REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION. 397 

a single quarrel, we have bad no miserable squabbles over 
patronage. We have had no factional fights. I had at 
one time the misfortune to differ widely with my colleague 
[Mr. Ploar] on a great question of international policy. 
It never cast the slightest shade upon our friendship or 
upon our confidence in each other. One of the acts of 
my life to which I look back with the greatest pleasure 

— probably forgotten by almost everybody except myself 

— was that at that time when the party undoubtedly by a 
great majority stood with the administration and with 
the views which I advocated, I had the pleasure to stand 
upon this platform and say to the assembled Kepublicans 
of Massachusetts tliat they ought to return to the Senate 
without a dissenting voice their great Senator, George F. 
Hoar. It is that spirit which has been the spirit of Mas- 
sachusetts. I think it is a spirit to which it is worth while to 
make some sacrifices. I like to have party harmony, as we 
are going to have it to-day, because I believe it is not 
a mere form of words, but a permanent advantage and a 
lasting principle. 

Now, Mr. President, I have advocated the adoption of 
this platform on the ground of party harmony. But I 
will not disguise from you or from this convention that 
I have also been influenced in the attitude which I have 
taken by a motive which I think you will all appreciate 
and approve. I have been influenced by the motive of 
friendship. Mr. President, as we grow older and the 
shadows begin to lengthen and the leaves which seemed 
so thick in youth above our heads grow thin and let us 
see the sky beyond ; as those in the ranks in front drop 
away and we come in sight, as we all must, of the eternal 
rifle-pits, a man begins to feel that, among the really pre- 
cious things of life, more lasting and more substantial 



398 REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION. 

than many or all of the objects of ambition here, is tlie 
love of those whom he loves and the friendships of those 
whose friendship he prizes. 

I have been long associated in politics and in all the 
ways of friendship with my colleague in the Senate. He 
has been a very good friend to me. He has been a wise, 
sagacious governor of this Commonwealth. He has been 
an upright, a loyal, a devoted Republican. I for one want 
to do everything I can to make his path smooth and to 
do what he desires. He would never ask any man to sac- 
rifice a principle to him. But I think he has not only 
won the honors which he holds at your hands, but that 
he has also earned your confidence, j'our respect, and your 
consideration (turning to Senator Crane, who sat upon 
the platform). I wanted to say this much on this partic- 
ular occasion, because the figure which Shakespeare intro- 
duces as a prologue to an act — " Rumor painted full of 
tongues " — has held the entire stage of Massachusetts 
politics for these many weeks. I wished to clear away if 
I could by my single voice — and I know it is rather a 
wild hope — I wished to clear away some of these suspi- 
cions, doubts, and misapprehensions with which our polit- 
ical atmosphere has been charged. 

Mr, President, there is another friend whose fortunes 
concerned me very nearly when I was called upon to con- 
sider what should be done at this time. The acting gov- 
ernor of the Commonwealth (turning to Mr. Draper, who 
sat upon the platform) is a friend for whom I have a 
great regard, a great affection, which I trust and believe 
is returned. He is my friend, faithful and just to me. 
I want to have him elected next November, and not merely 
because I am eager for a party victory, although I desire 
that as much as any man. I want to have him elected 



REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION. 399 

not merely because I think Republican success essential 
to the best interests of the Commonwealth, not merely 
because he is my friend, deep as that feeling is, but I 
want to have him elected because he is what he is, — a 
brave, courageous, high-minded man, who can look defeat 
in the face and watch departing votes with a smile, rather 
than sacrifice a principle to avoid the one or retain the 
other. If there is any possible obstacle that I can help 
to take away from his onward course, I would remove it. 
If there is a straw upon his path, I should like to brush it 
away. 

One other friend I want to speak of, and then I will ask 
you to pardon me for having trespassed so long upon your 
attention. He is not a friend whose personal fortunes are 
concerned in what we do here this morning. But that 
which he holds much dearer than his own personal for- 
tunes, the great policies, to the establishment of which he 
has given all that is best in him, are in a large measure at 
stake here to-day. He is my friend of many years, my 
close friend, my companion. I believe in him. A high 
destiny has called him to the greatest place in the repub- 
lic, one of the greatest places on earth. He goes out of 
it, solely by his own compulsion, in less than a year, but 
he leaves his policies behind him. I have differed with 
him sometimes, sometimes I have felt obliged to vote 
against him. He is too high-minded, too large-minded a 
man to object to a difference of opinion. He would not 
like a servile subservience. He had rather have a friend 
who speaks out honestly, even if he differs ; and if you can- 
not convince him, he will go his own way. He was charged 
when he came into power with being such a combative 
man that he was sure to involve the country in war ; and 
he has been the greatest peacemaker of his time. It was 



400 REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION. 

he who brought about peace between Russia and Japan. 
It was he who used his great influence for a peaceful solu- 
tion of the question at Algeciras, which were at one time 
threatening to the peace of the whole world. It is he and 
his great Secretary of State, Mr. Root, who have promoted 
peace throughout South America. It is he who has done 
more to press forward the work of The Hague than any- 
other man. It is he, more than any other man, who has 
built up a navy which is now the second in the world, and 
which in its long voyage has come to itself for the first 
time as a great fleet. That fleet and that voyage were 
great contributions to the peace of the United States and 
of the world. 

But the President's greatest work is the work he has 
done here at home. He found a situation confronting 
him where the American people were stirred with indig- 
nation at wrongs which they believed to exist, and they 
did not know how those wrongs could be reached. The 
great mass of the conservative, law-abiding citizens, neither 
the very rich nor the very poor men, who constitute the 
strength of the republic, who are the backbone of the 
Republican party, were looking about in alarm lest some- 
thing should not be done to cure the evils and the corrup- 
tions which menaced us. If the President had paused, if 
he had not gone forward, that great body of American 
citizens would have been forced into the arms of the vio- 
lent and the revolutionary. But it is he who satisfied 
them that the work would be done, that wrong should not 
be permitted to exist. He has given them what they 
wanted. He has stood between the radicals of reaction 
and the radicals of revolution ; and he has carried behind 
him the great mass of the American people. 

After a time, when men look back on this period and 



REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION. 401 

write Its history, they will see that what we have had done 
for us was the work of a great constructive statesman ; 
that the President has laid out a series of measures which, 
in substance, this country has adopted, or will adopt, to 
solve the problems which modern economic conditions 
have crowded upon us. And the people have followed 
him. The millions of dollars may be against him, Ijut 
the millions of votes are with him. lie is the best abused 
and the most popular man in the United States. He has 
been abused more than any President who ever sat in the 
White House, except Grant, Lincoln, and Washington ; 
and he has a popularity to-day and the confidence of the 
American people to a degree never equaled by any Presi- 
dent except Washington and Lincoln. The people under- 
stand. His enemies, however, have been powerful, if few. 
They have been vocal, if they have not been numerous, 
and they have left nothing undone to compass his defeat. 
Why has that abuse been showered upon him ? Read 
his messages, which many of those who condemn him fail 
to do, and you will find that the basic principles for which 
he stands are the principles upon which the American re- 
public must stand, if it is to stand at all — principles 
which no man can successfully confute or deny. But he 
set himself to the task of rooting up certain evils strongly 
fastened in the soil, and when they were torn out they 
shrieked like the fabled mandrake when it was pulled 
from the earth. Those who profited by the evils and 
abuses did not like it, and thence have come the ferocious 
attacks upon him. Fault has been found with the violence 
of his expressions. His language has been considered at 
times too strong. You cannot call men to a fire in a 
whisper. When the pioneer breaks into the jungle and 
the forest, he has to use the broadaxe in order to clear 



402 REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION. 

the great trees from his path. The pruning knife and 
the clipping shears are all very well in the ordered growth 
of a hundred years, or of many centuries of care under 
the hand of man. They are useless to the pioneer, who 
is breaking his way into the virgin forest. The man 
who was breaking into a system which had unconsciously 
grown up in our business world had to use strong lan- 
guage. It has been said that revolutions are not made 
with rosewater, and if you are going to force a great re- 
form through against those who are intrenched against it, 
you cannot force it through with a delicate touch. 

Mr. President, those policies which Theodore Roosevelt 
will bequeath to us on the 4th of March next, the Re- 
publican party alone can take up and carry forward to 
completion. There is not sanity enough in the Democratic 
party to do it, because when they nominate sane candi- 
dates they desert them, and when they select the " insane 
and unsafe " the voters fly from them. It is for us to 
follow the path which the President has marked out be- 
tween the radicals of reaction on the one side and the 
radicals of revolution on the other. There is only one 
Republican who can be nominated at Chicago who can be 
defeated ; and that is a Republican whose nomination 
would be hailed as a defeat of Theodore Roosevelt and 
his policies. There is only one way in which a Republican 
candidate can be defeated, and that is by factional fights 
among ourselves. I would have Massachusetts to-day 
to set the example of harmony and union so that she can 
make her opinion felt, and I would have her do it without 
wrong to any one, or mortification to any one, or hurt to 
any one. I would have her say to all her sister states : 
" There must be no factional fights among Republicans. 
The party must be united and harmonious, true to the 



REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION. 403 

traditions of the past and united on the principles of the 
present administration." When we are thus united and 
harmonious, the victory is always with us. The Republican 
party is never beaten when its members march in unison. 
In the interest of a wise progress, in the interest of the 
maintenance of those policies which we all have at heart, 
which we have approved in our resolutions — there never 
was a time when party union was more necessary. 

There is no man in this country who believes more 
thoroughly than I do in Theodore Roosevelt and his poli- 
cies. I would cut off my hand sooner than do anything to 
injure him. No one who knows me can doubt the sincerity 
or earnestness of my declared preference among presiden- 
tial candidates. You may believe, therefore, that when I 
urge upon you this union of hearts and union of hands in 
the work which is coming to us, I do it as an ardent friend 
and supporter of the present administration. 

I am sure that when I speak as I do, when I urge you 
to accept the solution reached by the resolutions commit- 
tee, I am speaking not only in the interests of our party 
here, but also in the interest of the larger party which 
covers every state ; not only in the interests of those friends 
of mine whom I have named to you and to whom I would 
render every service in my power, but I am speaking, I 
believe, in the interests of that great party of the nation 
in whose hands alone I firmly believe the future of that 
nation is safely to be trusted. 



SPEECH BEFORE THE REPUBLICAN NA- 
TIONAL CONVENTION AT CHICAGO. 

JITNE 17, 1908. 



SPEECH BEFOKE THE REPUBLICAN NA- 
TIONAL CONVENTION AT CHICAGO. 

June 17, 1908. 



Gentlemen of the Convention : I thank you most 
sincerely for the great honor you have done me in choos- 
ing me to preside over your deliberations. For it is a 
great honor to be the presiding officer of a Republican 
national convention. I can conceive of conventions — I 
have, indeed, heard of conventions, where the honor of such 
a post as that now occupied by me is dubious, and where, 
if excitement is present, pleasure is conspicuous by its ab- 
sence. But to be the presiding officer of a Republican 
convention is ever a high distinction to which no man can 
be insensible. Gentlemen of the convention, again I thank 
you. 

I shall not delay or detain you with many words. 
Your resolutions will set forth the principles of the party 
and declare the policies upon which we shall ask for the 
support of the people of the United States. With full- 
ness and with eloquence your temporary chairman already 
has reviewed the history of the party, has given you ac- 
count of what has been done, and has set forth what we 
hope and mean to do. My duty is merely to aid you, so 
far as I can, in the orderly and prompt transaction of the 
business which has brought us together. That business 



408 REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION. 

is momentous, — nothing less than to name here the two 
men who, speaking with the simplicity of truth, will be 
the next President and Vice-President of the United 
States. In order to win for them, and for our party, an 
assured as well as merited victory, we must defeat our 
opponents, whose exclusion from power is desired by the 
country and deserved by them. 

No other political party in modern times can show such 
a record of achievement during the last fifty years as the 
Republican party. Upon that record we can stand and 
challenge all comers to the lists. But it is well to remem- 
ber that the actual test we have to meet is much less se- 
vere. This is a comparative world. We do not go forth 
to contest the great prize with an ideal party, which we 
sometimes see beautifully depicted by persons of self-con- 
fessed superiority and chronic discontent. The glittering 
abstraction which they present never existed yet on sea 
or land. It gleams upon us in printers' ink, but it has 
neither substance nor organization nor candidates ; for or- 
ganizations and candidates must be taken from the ranks 
of men, and cannot be the floating phantoms of an uneasy 
dream. 

The American people must choose next November be- 
tween us and the Democratic party. With the Demo- 
cratic party, and with that alone, must the comparison 
be made. We differ from that party in some important 
particulars. We both, it is true, have a past and a his- 
tory, but we treat those possessions very differently. 
They wish to keep their past a profound secret. We seek 
by all means to publish ours to the world. If we refer to 
their history, they charge us with calumny. We regard 
ours, truthful and undistorted, as our greatest glory. To 
the youth of the country they say : " Judge us solely by 



REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION. 409 

our undiscovered future." We say: " Read our record, 
judge us by our past and our present, and from these 
learn what we are — what we have been and what we 
mean to be." Recall the cries which have sounded from 
the lips of these two parties during the last half-century. 
On the one side, " Slavery ; secession ; repudiation of the 
public debt ; fiat money ; free trade ; free silver ; the over- 
throw of the courts, and government ownership." 

On the Republican side, "Free soil; free men; the 
Union; the payment of the debt; honest money; protec- 
tion to American industry ; the gold standard ; the main- 
tenance of law, of order, and of the courts, and the govern- 
ment regulation of great corporations." The old shibbo- 
leths of the Democrats are to-day the epitaphs of policies 
which are dead and damned. They serve only to remind 
us of dangers escaped, or to warn us of perils to be 
shunned. The battle cries of the Republicans have been 
the watchwords of great causes. They tell of victories 
won and triumphs tasted ; they are embodied in the 
laws and mark the stepping-stones by which the repub- 
lic has risen to ever greater heights of power and pros- 
perity. 

As we thus call up the past, and the echoes of these old 
conflicts aoain sound in our ears and touch the chords of 
memory, one great fact stands forth, clear and shining. 
The Republican party never has failed except when it has 
faltered. Our long career of victory, so rarely broken, 
has been due to our meeting boldly each question as it 
arose, to our facing every danger, as it crossed our path, 
with entire courage, fearless of consequence, and deter- 
mined only to be true to the principles which brought the 
party into existence and to the spirit which has inspired 
it from its birth. "We faced secession rather than assent 



410 REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION. 

to the extension of slavery. Rather than submit to seces- 
sion we took up the dread burden of civil war. But a few 
years ago we permitted thousands of Republicans to leave 
us, thereby imperiling our political power, rather than 
abandon the gold standard and plunge the country into 
disaster and dishonor. 

In these latest years, as in the most remote, we have 
been true to our traditions. In the process of development 
a point was reached where the country was confronted by 
a situation more perilous than any it has ever faced except 
in the Civil War, and we Republicans were, therefore, 
obliged to deal with problems of the most complex and 
difficult character. To our honor, be it said, we have not 
shrunk from the task. Much has been done : much, no 
doubt, still remains to do ; but the great underlying prin- 
ciples have been established, and upon them we can build, 
as necessity arises, carefully and deliberately. 

I have spoken of the seriousness of the situation with 
which the country was confronted. Its gravity can hardly 
be overestimated. It grew out of conditions and was the 
result of forces beyond the control of men. Science and 
invention, the two great factors in this situation, have not 
only altered radically human environment and our relations 
to nature, but, in their application, they have also revolu- 
tionized economic conditions. These changed economic 
conditions have, in turn, affected profoundly society and 
politics. They have led, among other things, to combina- 
tions of capital and labor, on a scale and with a power never 
before witnessed. They have opened the way to accumu- 
lations of wealth in masses beyond the dreams of avarice 
and never before contemplated by men. The social and 
political problems thus created are wholly new. It is a 
fallacy to suppose that because the elements are old the 



REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION. 411 

problem itself must, therefore, differ only in degree from 
those which have gone before. The elements may be old, 
but the problem presented by a change in the proportion of 
the elements may be, and in this case is, entirely new. 
Great individual fortunes and rich men are, it is true, as 
old as recorded history. Nearly two thousand years ago 
the tax farmers of Home formed a " trust " for their own 
profit and protection ; the English people three centuries 
ago revolted against the patents and monopolies granted 
by Elizabeth and James to their courtiers and monopo- 
lists; forestallers and speculators in the necessities of life 
were a curse in our Revolution and were bitterly denounced 
by Washington. Yet, it is none the less true that the same 
things to-day present questions different in kind as well 
as in degree from their predecessors. It is the huge size 
of private fortunes, the vast extent and power of modern 
combinations of capital, made possible by present condi- 
tions, which have brought upon us, in these later years, 
problems portentous in their possibilities, and threatening 
not only our social and political welfare, but even our 
personal freedom, if they are not boldly met and wisely 
solved. 

The great body of the American people, neither very 
rich nor very poor ; the honest, the thrifty, the hard-work- 
ing; the men and women who earn and save, have no 
base envy, no fanatic hatred of wealth, whether individual 
or corporate, if it has been honestly gained and is wisely 
and generously employed with a sense of responsibility to 
the public. But this great body of our people, by habit 
and instinct alike wisely conservative, these people, who 
are the bone and sinew of our country, and upon whom 
its fortunes and its safety rest, began to observe, with deep 
alarm, the recent manifestations of the new economic con- 



412 REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION. 

ditions. More and more they came to believe that these 
vast fortunes and these huge combinations of capital were 
formed and built up by tortuous and dishonest means, and 
through a cynical disregard of the very laws which the 
mass of the people were compelled to obey. They began 
to fear that political power was being reft from their hands 
and put into possession of the money holders, that their 
dearest rights were in danger, that their hopes of success 
and advancement were cut off by business systems which 
they could not understand but in which the individual was 
sacrificed and held down. To those who looked beneath 
the surface, an ominous unrest was apparent. The violent 
counsels of violent men, who aimed at the destruction of 
property and the overthrow of law, began to be heard and 
hearkened to. The great order-loving, industrious masses 
of the American people turned away from these advocates 
of violence, but, at the same time, demanded that their 
government should give them, in lawful and reasonable 
ways, the protection to which they were entitled, against 
the dangers they justly apprehended. 

The grave duty of fulfilling these righteous demands, 
like all the great public services of the last half-century, 
was imposed upon the Republican party, and it has not 
flinched from the burden. Under the lead of the Presi- 
dent, the Republican party has grappled with the new 
problems, born of the new conditions. It has been no 
light task. Dangerous extremes threatened on either 
hand. On the one side were the radicals of reaction, 
who resisted any change at all ; on the other side were the 
radicals of destruction, who wished to change everything. 
These two forms of radicalism are as far apart at the out- 
set as the poles, but when carried out they lead alike to 
revolution. Between these two extremes the Republican 



REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION. 413 

President and the Republican Congress were compelled to 
steer, and, while they advanced steadily, soberly, and effect- 
ively, they were obliged to repel the radical assaults on 
either hand. Yet, notwithstanding all these difficulties, 
much has been accomplished. The response of the people 
to the policies urged by the President has been so emphatic 
that it has been made clear, once for all, that the government 
of the United States is never to be dominated by money and 
financial interests, and that the political party which per- 
mits itself to be ruled by them is thereby doomed to de- 
feat. 

The policy of the Republican party in dealing with 
these new and formidable questions, which have taken con- 
crete form in enormous combinations of capital and in 
great public service corporations, has been formulated and 
determined. That policy is to use government regulation 
and supervision for the control of corporations and com- 
binations, so that these great and necessary instruments of 
commerce and business may be preserved as useful servants, 
and not destroyed because they have threatened to become 
dangerous masters. This policy is the absolute opposite 
of government ownership and all like measures, advo- 
cated by our opponents, which tend directly to socialism 
and to all its attendant miseries and evils. It is in pur- 
suance of this policy, shaped and settled during the last 
few years, that old laws have been enforced and new ones 
enacted. 

Nothing is more destructive to the respect for law — 
the chief bulwark of civilized society — than to place laws 
upon the statute book in order merely to still public 
clamor and satisfy the people, but which it is never in- 
tended to enforce. The worst laws imaginable are those 
which are allowed to rust, unused, because, if enforced, 



414 REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION. 

they might interfere with vested abuses or curb the rich 
and powerful. The President has enforced the laws as 
he found them on the statute book. For this performance 
of his sworn duty he has been bitterly attacked. It was 
to be expected. Vested abuses and profitable wrongs cry 
out loudly when their intrenchments are carried, and some 
one is sure to be hurt when the bayonets of the law are 
pushed home. In the great American electorate money 
has few votes, but it can command many voices and cause 
many birds to sing. The result is that the President is 
the best abused and the most popular man in the United 
States to-day. He has been more abused than any Presi- 
dent except Washington, Lincoln, and Grant. He pos- 
sesses the love and confidence of the American people to 
a degree never equaled except by Lincoln and Washing- 
ton. May it not be said, in sober truth, that the fearless 
performance of a sworn duty is not without its exceeding 
great reward ? 

But the work has not ceased with the enforcement of 
existing laws. A Republican Congress and a Republican 
President have placed new laws upon the statute books, 
designed to carry out the Republican policy of government 
regulation in a safe, reasonable, and effective manner. 
The Elkins law, aimed at preferential rebates, which have 
been the curse of our transportation and our business ; 
the railroad rate law, which made the supervision of rail- 
roads more effective ; and the pure food law, which has 
been, in the highest degree, beneficent to the masses of 
our people, are all monuments of the policy and the labors 
of the Republican party. 

The President, who has led his party and the people in 
this great work, retires, by his own determination, from 
his high office, on the 4th of March next. His refusal of 



REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION. 415 

a renomination, dictated by the loftiest motives and by a 
noble loyalty to American traditions, is final and irrevo- 
cable. Any one who attempts to use his name as a can- 
didate for the presidency impugns both his sincerity and 
his good faith, two of the President's gi-eatest and most 
conspicuous qualities, upon which no shadow has ever been 
cast. That man is no friend to Theodore Roosevelt, and 
does not cherish his name and fame, who now, from any 
motive, seeks to urge him as a candidate for the great 
office which he has finally declined. The President has 
refused what his countrymen would gladly have given 
him; he says what he means and means what he says, 
and his party and his country will respect his wishes as 
they honor his high character and great public service. 

But, although the President retires, he leaves his poli- 
cies behind him. To those policies the Republican i)arty 
stands pledged. We must carry them out, as we have 
begun, regardless alike of the radicals of reactions and 
the radicals of revolution. We must hold fast to that 
which is good while we make the advances which the times 
demand. 

We ask for the confidence and support of the American 
people, because we have met the problems of the day and 
have tried patiently to solve them. We appeal for votes 
and for the power they confer, because we uphold the Pres- 
ident's policies and shall continue to sustain them. We 
make our appeal with confidence, because we have a well- 
defined policy, and are not, like our opponents, fumbling 
in the dark to find some opinion on something. 

We believe in the maintenance of law and order, and in 
the support of the courts in all their rights and dignity. 
We believe in equal rights for all men, and are opposed 
to special privileges for any man or any class of men, 



416 REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION. 

high or low, rich or poor. We, who established the gold 
standard, are pledged to the cause of sound finance. We 
stand for protection to American industry and American 
labor, and we will resist all the assaults of free trade 
under whatever name it comes disguised. 

We will see to the defense of the country. We mean 
to have a navy worthy of the American name. We seek 
peace and friendship with all the nations, but alliance with 
none. Yet we have no intention of being a " hermit na- 
tion." The great services of the President to the world's 
peace will be continued by the party which he has led. 

We are a party fit to rule and govern, to legislate 
and administer, and not a fortuitous collection of atoms 
whose only form of thought or motion is to oppose. 
Above all, we are true to our traditions and to our past. 
True now, as we were in the days of Lincoln. 

In this spirit we must prevail ; by this sign we must 
conquer. 



WILLIAM B. ALLISON. 

SPEECH IN THE SENATE, 
FEBRUARY 6, 1909. 



WILLIAM B. ALLISON. 



Mr. President : Advancing years impose their penal- 
ties upon every man. In their silent action there is a 
terrible certainty and an unsparing equality of distribu- 
tion, but among all their warnings, among all the mile- 
stones which they place to mark the passage of time, none 
is more mournful than the task of reading the letters and 
biographies of those whom we have known and loved, or 
the sad duty which compels us to utter in public our words 
of praise and affection for the friends, the companions, 
the long-trusted leaders who have gone. Yet all these 
trials must be faced, as we look into the eyes of Fate or 
listen to its knocking at the door. All that we can do 
is to meet them seriously and solemnly, yet in the right 
spirit, without empty and helpless lamentation. The death 
of Senator Allison has brought these familiar thoughts to 
my mind, old thoughts, indeed, yet ever new, and recur- 
ring lately with a painful frequency as I reflected what 
a long and affectionate friendship was ended, what a 
blank space was suddenly made in my daily life by his 
departure. 

I recall with great vividness my first meeting with 
Senator Allison at dinner in 1874, at the house of Mr. 
Samuel Hooper, a distinguished Member of Congress re- 
presenting one of the Boston districts. The party was a 
small one, consisting only of our host, his nephew, myself, 



420 WILLIAM B. ALLISON. 

Senator Conkling, and Senator Allison. I was a boy just 
out of college, and Mr. Allison appeared to me a person 
of great age and dignity. As a matter of fact, he was 
only forty-five, which seems to me now quite young, and 
he had but just begun that career in the Senate which 
was destined to prove so long and so memorable. Mr. 
Hooper's nephew, a classmate and lifelong friend of mine, 
and I sat by and listened to all that was said that evening 
with deep and silent interest. The talk was very good 
and well worth listening to. To those who remember the 
men, it is needless to say that Mr. Conkling took the un- 
questioned lead in the conversation, and that when he 
criticised, as he frequently did, he spared no one. Young 
men, without much thought of the pain or injustice which 
may be inflicted, enjoy sarcasm and satire and wit at the 
expense of others. Youth is not, as a rule, a tender-hearted 
period, and Mr. Conkling showed plenty of sport in dis- 
cussing not only his enemies but those whom Cosimo dei 
Medici declared were more to be feared by every man, — 
his friends. Mr. Allison himself did not escape. My 
remembrance of Mr. Conkling and of the character of 
his talk is very sharp and clear, and that is all. My re- 
collection of Senator Allison is equally distinct, but it 
brings with it a gentle memory of the kindness of a dis- 
tinguished and much older man to a young fellow whom 
he never expected to see again, of a sense of humor as 
kindly as it was keen, of a good nature which took even 
Mr. Conkling's gibes with a quiet dignity and easy pa- 
tience, very pleasant to witness and very pleasant still to 
recall. Perhaps it is not unprofitable to remember these 
things, for I think that among the qualities manifested 
that evening, thirty-five years ago, a lesson in good man- 
ners, in self-restraint, and in personal dignity, might be 



WILLIAM B. ALLISON. 421 

discovered without undue delving. I have spoken of this 
little incident, quite unimportant except to myself, because 
the qualities which I then saw, as I thought, in Mr. Alli- 
son were really among his most conspicuous attributes. 
He did not wear his heart upon his sleeve, but his gentle- 
ness, his humor, his innate kindliness, were as apparent to 
the casual and humble stranger as to those who knew him 
best. He did not cover them with austerity, solenmity, 
or pomposity, and reserve them only for the benefit of the 
leading actors upon the great stage where his life was 
passed, but he gave them freely to all the world, and 
made the world thereby, so far as his influence went, a 
happier place to live in. 

After I came to Washington it was my good fortune 
to know Senator Allison better while I was still in the 
House, and for fifteen years I have seen him constantly 
and intimately every day of each session. The nearer 
view changed in no respect, although it enhanced what 
my first brief glance of him had revealed. But years of 
a common service disclosed to me that which I had only 
dimly perceived before, his qualities as a public man and 
as a statesman ; for he was universally admitted to deserve 
the latter title long before the last hard condition which 
turns a successful politician into a statesman, as pointed 
out by Mr. Speaker Reed, had been fulfilled. It is of 
Mr. Allison in this capacity that I desire to speak to-day. 
Others here will trace the stages of his career and recount 
his services better than I. His life will be told by his 
biographers in the time to come with adequate materials 
and in the ample historical proportions which it so well 
deserves. My purpose is a very modest one, merely to 
attempt to give my impression of Mr. Allison as a states- 
man, and of the type of public man which he presented 



422 WILLIAM B. ALLISON. 

in his long, useful, and honorable service of more than 
forty years. That service was crowded with incessant 
work, for no more industrious, no more conscientious 
man ever lived. The hardest suffering of his last year 
was the sense that he could not do all the work which 
pertained to his high position as he had been wont to do 
it. The great measures to which, as the years passed by, 
his name was attached, would be an imposing list; and if 
we were to add to this those in which he had a large, 
shaping, and even controlling part, it would fill pages of 
our record. His monument as a lawmaker, a great func- 
tion when properly fulfilled, is to be found in the statutes 
and the history of the United States during the last forty 
years. But his most valuable work, if we would look at 
it as a whole, as his personal contribution to the welfare 
of his fellow beings, is not conspicuous in the printed 
pages of books of laws or books of history, now that he 
is dead, any more than it was in the mouths of men while 
he was living. To value him rightly we must understand 
the Senate and its daily work. The brilliant oration, 
the violent diatribe, the coarse invective, the vulgar abuse, 
are spread in large letters and in long columns before the 
public eye ; and except in the case of a really great speech, 
contributing to the settlement of a great question, they 
fade as quickly as the tints of the rainbow on the break- 
ing wave, and are rarely able to find in the days when the 
account is made up even the slight remembrance of a 
historian's footnote. No mistake is commoner than that 
which confuses notoriety with fame. Fame may be the 
last infirmity of noble minds, but it is built upon the 
rock of deeds done, while notoriety is always fleeting 
and generally vulgar. Mr. Allison's fame rests securely 
not only upon the great historic measures in which he 



WILLIAM B. ALLISON. 423 

had a leading share, but upon his steady work done here 
day by day, quietly, diligently, thoroughly, without the 
glare of headlines, for the most part unobserved and 
largely unappreciated by the American people, who pro- 
fited so greatly by its results. The Senator from Maine 
[Mr. Hale] has a favorite phrase of description in regard 
to some of those who have served here or who serve here 
now. When he woidd praise highly, he says such a man 
is "a good Senator." This has nothing to do witli char- 
acter or disposition, or with virtue, public or private, but 
means that a Senator does the work of the Senate well — 
the work of carrying on the government, of advancing 
good measures and arresting bad ones, the obscure work, 
the essential work, in which there is much labor and little 
glory, and which demands constant attendance and un- 
flagging attention. Tried by this exacting test, who 
would hesitate to say that for many years Mr. Allison 
was our best Senator ? 

He was a party leader, a wise adviser, and a f ramer of 
policies, but he was also, and above all, one of the men 
who carry on the government. They are not many at any 
time, and they are absolutely essential at all times. In the 
midst of political strife, in the tumult which attends the 
rise and fall of parties, to use the English phrase, " Tlie 
King's Government must be carried on." "Wliatever storm 
may rage, however bitter and loud may be the strife of 
contending factions, the public debts must be paid, na- 
tional credit maintained, the army and navy kept on a 
proper footing, the mails must be delivered, and the reve- 
nue collected. No matter what happens, some one must 
be at work ohne Hast, ohne RaM to see that these thinofs 
are done in due season. Macaulay has said that Attila 
did not conduct his campaigns on exchequer bills, but we 



424 WILLIAM B. ALLISON. 

do ; aud what is more important, we maintain the orderly 
movement of our government in that way from day to day. 
It is a heavy burden, and the country owes much to those 
who bear it. This was Mr. Allison's task during more 
than the lifetime of a generation. Beyond any one in our 
time, perhaps beyond any one in our history, did he bear 
this great responsibility, and he never failed in his duty. 
For thirty-six years a member of the Committee on Ap- 
propriations, for twenty-five years its chairman, he be- 
came a sort of permanent chancellor of the exchequer. In 
the long list of eminent men who have filled that great 
office in England, there is not one who has surpassed him 
in knowledge of his subject, in the dexterity and skill with 
which he drafted laws and reconciled conflicting views, in 
financial ability, or in the strength of capacity with which 
he gauged the sources of revenue and adjusted expendi- 
tures to income. No one ever applied to him the cheap 
title of " watchdog of the Treasury," whose glory comes 
merely from barking so as to split the ears of the ground- 
lings, and whose niggard and unenlightened resistance to 
every expenditure, no matter how meritorious, usually 
causes enormous and increased outlay in the end. Mr. 
Allison was too great as well as too experienced a man to 
think parsimony was statesmanship, and not to know that 
a wise liberality was as a rule the truest economy of the 
public money. 

Very few persons, even here, realize what labor, what 
knowledge, what experience he brought to his work. We 
saw a great bill reported, we watched him handle it with 
a tact and skill which I have never seen equaled, we noted 
that he was familiar with every item and could answer 
every question, and we were satisfied with the outcome 
and did not pause to consider what it all meant. To 



WILLIAM B. ALLISON. 425 

achieve this result implied a miuute knowledge of every 
branch of the government and every detail of expenditure, 
which had cost days and nights of labor and years of 
experience. Scrupulous honesty, of course, was his ; but 
that would have gone but a short distance without the 
trained intelligence, the unswerving diligence, the disci- 
plined mind, which controlled the disposition of tlie mil- 
lions upon millions that passed unscathed through his 
strong, clean hands. Moreover, he was always here. The 
standing joke about his caution and his avoidance of un- 
qualified statement, which no one enjoyed more than he, 
grew out of certain temperamental attributes. But it is 
well to remember that, however guarded he was in speech, 
he never failed to vote, which is the real and final index 
of political courage and of constancy of opinion and con- 
viction. He may have put clauses of limitation into what 
he said, but he never shrank from, never evaded, a vote. 

Presidents and cabinets. Speakers and House chairmen, 
came and went, but he remained at his post, until we re- 
garded him in the field of finance and appropriation al- 
most, as was said of Webster, like an institution of the 
country. Six times did the legislature of Iowa elect him 
to the Senate. Pride in the State, pride in him, and per- 
sonal aifection counted for much in their action ; but I 
cannot but think that they realized also their responsi- 
bility to the country which prized so highly the services of 
their Senator. It is the fashion, just now, to decry legis- 
latures ; but we shall wait long before we find any form of 
election which will represent as truly the real will, not 
only of the people of a state, but of the people of all the 
states, as did the legislature of Iowa during those thirty- 
six years. It will be a sorry day for government and 
people alike when we lose that permanence and continu- 



426 WILLIAM B. ALLISON. 

ity, that directing and guiding force, which such careers 
and such service as Mr. Allison's have given to the 
Senate. It is such careers as his which have made the 
Senate what it has been in our history ; and if, under 
pretense of making it more popular, we are subjected to 
schemes which open the door wide to those who would com- 
mit fraud and to those who would spend money with- 
out stint, we shall not only see the popular will distorted, 
travestied, and defeated, but the country will be deprived 
of the long-continued services of such men as Mr. Allison, 
which have been and are of inestimable value to the 
United States. 

Where, then, shall we rank him ? To put him out of 
or above the class to which he rightfully belongs would 
not be the part of love and affection, but of vain eulogy, 
which perishes with the breath which utters it. He did 
not stand in the class with Lincoln, savior of the state, 
greatest, as an English historian has said, of all the fig- 
ures of the nineteenth century. He did not reach that 
lonely height. Nor was he one of the class of men like 
Bismarck and Cavour, builders of nations, relentless 
wielders of armies, masters of all the subtle arts of di- 
plomacy. Mr. Allison belongs to the type of statesmen 
of which the history of the English-speaking race fur- 
nishes, happily, many examples. They are men who carry 
on the government, and who have made possible the prac- 
tical success of free representative institutions. Wise, 
far-seeing, prudent, devoted to their country, and abound- 
ing in good sense, they command by their absolute hon- 
esty and capacity the entire confidence of senates and par- 
liaments. Among the chief statesmen of this class Mr. 
Allison holds his high place. Such a verdict as this may 
at this moment sound cold, but it has one great merit, 



WILLIAM B. ALLISON. 427 

that of truth, and the more we consider it the more we 
shall understand what high praise it carries with it. 

"We Americans take great pride in our country, and no 
people has better cause for pride. In no country is pa- 
triotism more intense. We never hesitate to give expres- 
sion to our love of country under all conditions, sometimes 
with a vehemence which tends to make others think that 
we doubt our own sincerity, and with a disregard of time 
and place which outsiders, at least, are prone to deem 
crude and tasteless. Yet, although it sounds like a para- 
dox, we are at the same time curiously distrustful of our- 
selves, and seem almost void of self-confidence in iucliiiujr 
the work of Americans. We oscillate between the ex- 
tremes of unintelligent laudation, given merely because 
that which we praise is American, and trembling hesitation 
in awarding proper place to real achievement. The higher 
we rise in the scale of intelligence and education, the more 
timid we seem to become ; and we look over our shoulders 
and criticise and even sneer at American performance be- 
cause, apparently, we feel that we may be laughed at by 
somebody, or because we suspect that we are something 
apart from and beneath the standards of the civilized 
world. For no better reason than that we have at times 
praised foolishly and extravagantly, we are shy of praising 
rightly and justly. We shrank away from Walt Whitman 
until men like Rossetti and Symonds and Stevenson and 
Swinburne had spoken, and then we only slowly acknow- 
ledged that the Long Island carpenter was a great poet, 
and one who had become a real and original force in the 
splendid annals of English verse. As with the poet, so 
with the painter and sculptor, the writer and the states- 
man. We yield easily to the provincial temptation to hail 
with exultation the heaven-born genius, who generally 



428 WILLIAM B. ALLISON. 

never justifies his title, and we doubt and hesitate and 
pause in giving due place to the work of a lifetime, deep- 
founded on all that is best in our inheritance, slowly and 
painfully built up by talents steadily applied and by sacri- 
fice of self to a noble purpose. 

If Mr. Allison had done the work and held the place 
in Ensfland which he did and held here, his memoirs would 
appear in fit and stately volumes, like those which recount 
the life of the late Lord Granville, whom Mr. Allison re- 
sembled in service and character, although the fields of 
their activity were different. Had he been a great Eng- 
lish statesman, as he was a great American statesman, his 
statue would have its place here in the Capitol, the scene 
of his labors ; as at Westminster we find the statues of 
English pi-ime ministers and parliamentary leaders, many 
of whom Mr. Allison surpassed in all that goes to make 
a statesman. I trust that this may yet be done ; but I 
greatly fear that we shall go on adding to the freaks in 
marble and to the effigies of the temporarily illustrious, 
which now crowd against those of some of our really great 
men, and only serve to disfigure one of the most beautiful 
rooms which modern architecture has given to the world. 
I say all this of Mr. Allison, not in the beaten way of 
eulogy or tribute, but because I wished, by historical stand- 
ards and, so far as possible, with the coolness of history, 
to vindicate the place of a man who was a great public 
servant, a statesman as eminent as he was modest, and to 
whom this country owes a large debt, not merely for his 
lifelong labors, but for the example he set to us all and the 
dignity he gave to the Government of the United States. 

And yet, when everything has been said, strive as hard 
as we may to govern ourselves by the tests of history and 
to award to Mr. Allison the place which was rightfully his, 



WILLIAM B. ALLISON. 429 

and wlilch all men slioulcl acknowledge, at the end it is 
the man of whom we think to-day and not the Senator. 
His death meant a personal loss to each of us. Ilis abili- 
ties, his honesty, his unstinted devotion to the country, 
his fine character, his keen sense of humor, we do well to 
tell them over. He fully deserves it all. But what history 
or posterity cannot feel or know, is the one thing we feel 
most and know best. He inspired love and affection. He 
was beloved by all who knew him, and to us here his death 
leaves a blank which cannot be filled. Great powers were 
his, but the greatest of all his attributes was that kind, 
warm heart, that goodness to others, which cast a spell 
over every one who came within his influence. 

His life was gentle, and the elements 

So mix'd in him that Nature might stand up 

And say to all the world, " This was a man. " 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

ADDRESS BEFORE THE GOVERNOR AND LEGISLATURE OF 
MASSACHUSETTS, FEBRUARY 12, 1909. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, Your Excellency, 
Senators, and Gentlemen of the House of Repre- 
sentatives : By your kind request I am here. An invi- 
tation from you is to me a command, whicli it is at once 
an honor and a pleasure to obey. But in thus honoring 
me you have suddenly imposed upon me a duty, which it 
is not easy worthily to fulfill. You have asked me to ad- 
dress you upon this, the one hundredth anniversary of the 
birth of Abraham Lincoln ; to express for you and to you 
some of the thoughts which ought to find utterance when, 
on the completion of the century, we seek to pay fit hom- 
age to the memory of that great man. 

I know not how it may be with the many others who, in 
these days of commemoration, will speak of Lincoln, but to 
me the dominant feeling, as I approach my subject, is a 
sense of helplessness, and a sharp realization of the im- 
possibility of doing justice to such an occasion. To attempt 
here a review of his life would be labor lost. Ten stately 
volumes by those who lived in closest communion with 
him, and who knew him best, were not more than adequate 
to tell fitly the story of his life. That story too, in vary- 
ing form, is known to all the people, " familiar in their 
mouths as household words." From the early days of 
dire poverty, from the log cabin of the shiftless pioneer, 
ever moving forward in search of a fortune which never 



434 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

came, from the picture of the boy working his sums or 
reading his Bible and his Milton by the red light of the 
fire, the marvelous tale goes onward and upward to the 
solemn scene of the second inaugural, and to the burial 
of the great chief amid the lamentations of a nation. We 
know it all, and the story is one of the great treasures of 
the American people. 

Still more impossible would it be in a brief moment 
here to draw, even in the barest outline, a sketch of the 
events in which his was the commanding presence, for that 
would be to write the history of the United States during 
the most crowded and most terrible years of our existence 
as a nation. Yet if Lincoln's life and deeds, by their 
very magnitude, thus exclude us from any attempt even 
to enumerate them, there is, nevertheless, something still 
better which we can do upon this day, forever made memo- 
rable by his birth. We can render to him what I ven- 
ture to think is the truest homage, that which I believe 
he would prize most, and compared to which any other is 
little more than lip service. We can pause to-day in the 
hurry of daily life and contemplate that great, lonely, 
tragic figure, that imagination with its touch of the poet, 
that keen, strong mind with its humor and its pathos, that 
splendid common sense and pure character, and then learn 
from the life which the possessor of all these qualities 
lived, and from the deeds which he did, lessons which 
may not be without value to each one of us in our own 
lives, in teaching us the service which we should render to 
our country. Let me express my meaning, with slight 
variation, in his own immortal words : — 

The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say 
here, but it can never forget what he did here. It is for us, the 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 435 

living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work wliich 
he who fought here has thus far so nobly advanced. 

In this spirit I am about to suggest a few thoughts 
among the many which have come to me as I have medi- 
tated upon the life of Abraham Lincoln, and upon what, 
with that great theme before me, I should say to you to- 
day. 

I desire first, if I can, to take you back for a moment 
to the living man, and thereby show you what some of his 
trials were and how he met them, for in doing so I believe 
we can learn better how to deal with our own problems. 
I think, too, that if we thus look upon him with consid- 
erate eyes, we shall be inspired to seek, in public affairs, 
for more charitable and better instructed judgments upon 
public men and public events than are common now. 
We are apt, unconsciously and almost inevitably, to con- 
fuse in our minds the Lincoln of to-day, the Lincoln of 
history, as he dwells in our hearts and our imaginations, 
with the actual man who was President of the United 
States in the dai'k days of the Civil War, and who strug- 
gled forward amid difficulties greater, almost, than any 
ever encountered by a leader of men. 

Mankind has never lost its capacity for weaving myths, 
or its inborn love for them. This faculty, or rather this 
innate need of human nature, is apparent in the earliest 
pages of human history. The beautiful and tragic myths, 
born of the Greek imagination, which have inspired poets 
and dramatists for three thousand years, come to us out 
of the dim past with the light of a roseate dawn upon them. 
They come to us alike in the great verse of Homer and 
veiled in the gray mists of the north, where we descry the 
shadows of fighting men and hear the clash of swords and 



436 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

the wild screams of the Valkyries. The leaders of tribes, 
the founders of states, the eponymous and autochthonous 
heroes in the infancy of civilization were all endowed by 
the popular imagination with a divine descent and a near 
kinship to the gods. We do not give our heroes godlike 
ancestors, although I have seen a book which traces the 
pedigree of Washington to Odin ; but when they are great 
enough we transmute the story of their lives into a myth, 
just like the Greeks and the Norsemen. Do not imagine 
from this that I am about to tell you of the " real " or the 
"true" Lincoln. Nothing would be more alien to my 
purpose, or more distasteful ; for I have observed that, as 
a rule, when these words are prefixed to the subject of a 
biography, it usually means that we have spread before us 
a collection of petty details and unworthy gossip, which 
presents an utterly distorted view of a great man, which 
is, in substance, entirely false, and which gratifies only 
those envious minds which like to see superiority brought 
down to their own level. Such presentations are as ig- 
noble and base as the popular myth, however erroneous, 
is loving and beautiful, — a manifestation of that noble 
quality in human nature which Carlyle has described in 
his "Hero Worship." I wish merely to detach Lincoln 
from the myth, which has possession of us all, that his 
wisdom, his purity, and his greatness were as obvious 
and acknowledged, or ought to have been as obvious and 
acknowledged, in his lifetime as they are to-day. We 
have this same feeling about the one man in American 
history who stands beside Lincoln in unchallenged equal- 
ity of greatness. Washington, indeed, is so far removed 
that we have lost our conception of the fact that he was 
bitterly criticised, that he struggled with many difficulties, 
and that his words, which to us have an almost sacred 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 437 

significance, were, when they were uttered, treated by 
some persons then extant with contempt. Let me give 
you an idea of what certain people, now quite forgotten, 
thought of Washington when he went out of office. On 
the 6th of March, 1797, the leading newspaper of the 
opposition spoke as follows : — 

" Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace " was 
the pious ejaculation of a pious man who beheld a flood of hap- 
piness rushing in upon mankind. If ever there was a time that 
would license the reiteration of the ejaculation, that time has 
now arrived ; for the man who is the source of all the misfortunes 
of our country is this day reduced to a level with his fellow citi- 
zens, and is no longer possessed of power to multiply evils upon 
the United States. If ever there was a period for rejoicing, this 
is the moment. Every heart in unison with the freedom and 
happiness of the people ought to beat high with exultation that 
the name of Washington ceases from this day to give currency 
to political insults and to legalized corruption. A new era is now 
opening upon us, — an era which promises much to the people ; 
for public measures must now stand upon their own merits, and 
nefarious projects can no longer be supported by a name. When 
a retrospect has been taken of the Washington administration for 
eight years, it is a subject of the greatest astonishment that a 
single individual should have cankered the principles of Repub- 
licanism in an enlightened people just emerging from the gulf 
of despotism, and should have carried his designs against the 
public liberty so far as to have put in jeopardy its very exist- 
ence. Such, however, are the facts, and with these staring us in 
the face, the day ought to be a jubilee in the United States. 

How strange and unreal this sounds to us who know 
not merely that George Washington led the army of the 
United States to victory, but that his administration es- 
tablished our Union and our government, which Lincoln, 



438 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

leading the American people, was destined to preserve. 
The myth has grown so powerful that it is hard to com- 
prehend that actual living men were uttering words like 
these about George Washington. 

The same feeling in regard to Lincoln began to take 
form even earlier than in the case of Washington. The man- 
ner of his death made men see, as by a flash of lightning, 
what he was and what he had done, even before the grave 
closed over him. Nothing illustrates the violent revulsion 
of sentiment which then occurred better than the verses 
which appeared in " Punch " when the news of his death 
reached England. He had been jeered at, abused, vili- 
fied, and caricatured in England to a degree which can be 
understood only by those who lived through that time, or 
who have turned over the newspapers and magazines, or 
read the memoirs and diaries of that epoch. In this 
chorus of abuse " Punch " had not lagged behind. Then 
came the assassination, and then these verses by Tom 
Taylor, written to accompany Tenniel's cartoon represent- 
ing England laying a wreath on Lincoln's bier : — 

Beside this corpse, that bears for winding sheet 
The Stars and Stripes he lived to rear anew, 

Between the mourners at his head and feet, 
Say, scurril jester, is there room for you ? 

Yes, he had lived to shame me from my sneer, 
To lame my pencil and confute my pen ; 

To make me own this hind of princes peer, 
This rail-splitter a true born king of men. 

How, at a glance, we see not only the greatness and no- 
bility of the man, forcing themselves upon the minds of 
men abroad as at home, but how keenly these remorseful 
verses make us realize the storm of abuse, of criticism, and 
defamation through which he had passed to victory. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 439 

From that day to this the tide of feeling has swept on, 
until, with Lincoln as with Washington, we have become 
unable, without a serious effort, to realize the attacks 
which he met, the assaults which were made upon him, or 
the sore trials which he had to endure. I would fain show 
you how the actual man, living in those terrible years, 
met one or two of the attacks. 

Lincoln believed that the first step toward the salva- 
tion of the Union was to limit the area of secession. He 
wished above all things, therefore, to hold in the Union 
the Border States, as they were then called. If those 
states were added to the Confederacy, the chances of sav- 
ing the Union would have been seriously diminished. In 
those same states there was a strong Union feeling and 
a very weak anti-slavery feeling. If they could be con- 
vinced that the controlling purpose of the war was to pre- 
serve the Union, the chances were that they could be held ; 
but if they were made to believe that the real object of 
the war was the abolition of slavery, they would probably 
have been lost. Lincoln, therefore, had checked Fremont 
in issuing orders for the liberation of the slaves, and in 
the first year of the war had done nothing in that direc- 
tion, for reasons which seemed to him good, and which, 
to all men to-day, appear profoundly wise. Abolitionists 
and extreme anti-slavery men everywhere were bitterly 
disappointed, and a flood of criticism was let loose upon 
him for his attitude in this matter, while at the same time 
he was also abused by reactionaries and by the opposition 
as a " radical " and " black Republican." Horace Greeley, 
an able editor and an honest man, devoted to the cause of 
the Union, but a lifelong and ardent opponent of slavery, 
assailed the President in the New York " Tribune." 
Here is Lincoln's reply : — 



440 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

Executive Mansion, 
Washington, Aug. 22, 1862. 

As to the policy I " seem to be pursuing," as you say, I have 
not meant to leave any one in doubt. 

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way 
under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can 
be restored, the nearer the Union will be " the Union as it was." 
If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could 
at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there 
be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the 
same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My para- 
mount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not 
either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union 
without freeing any slave I would do it ; and if I could save it 
by freeing all the slaves I would do it ; and if I could save it 
by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. 
What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I be- 
lieve it helps to save the Union ; and what I forbear, I forbear 
because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall 
do less whenever I shall believe that what I am doing hurts the 
cause, and I shall do more whenever I believe doing more will 
help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be 
errors, and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear 
to be true views. 

I have here stated my purpose according to my view of of- 
ficial duty ; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed 
personal wish that all men everywhere could be free. 

What a reply that is ! Using his unrivaled power of 
statement, be sets forth his policy with a force which drives 
opposition helpless before it and renders retort impossible. 
He strips the issue bare of every irrelevant consideration, 
and makes it so plain that no one can mistake it. 

This was a case of specific criticism. There were 
others of a more general nature. A few months after 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 441 

Greeley wrote, Mr, Lincoln received a letter from Mr. Carl 
Schurz. Mr. Schurz, who has been a familiar figure to 
the present generation, was an able man and a very elo- 
quent and effective speaker, esj^ecially upon economic sub- 
jects. He was also fond of criticising other people who 
were doing work for which they were responsible and not 
he. His system of criticism was a simple one. He would 
depict an ideal President, or Cabinet officer, or Senator ; 
put him in an ideal situation, surrounded by conditions as 
they ought to be, and with this imaginary person he would 
then contrast, most unfavorably, the actual man who was 
trying to get results out of conditions which were not at 
all as they ought to be, but which, as a matter of fact, actu- 
ally existed. This method of discussion, of course, pre- 
sented Mr. Schurz in a very admirable light, and gave 
him a great reputation, especially with people who had 
never been called upon to bear any public responsibility 
at all. When Mr, Schurz was in the Cabinet himself he 
fell easily into the class which he criticised, and, naturally, 
bore no relation to the ideal by which he tried other people ; 
but that fact never altered the opinion of his greatness 
entertained by his admirers. They liked to hear him find 
fault pointedly and eloquently with their contemporaries, 
but they forgot or overlooked the fact that in the past he 
had applied his system to Lincoln, and in that connection 
the process seems less convincing. Here is Lincoln's 
reply to Mr. Schnrz's criticism : — 

Washington, Not. 24, 1862. 
My Dear Sir, — I have just received and read your letter 
of the 20th. The purport of it is that we lost the late elections 
and the administration is failing because the war is unsuccessful, 
and that I must not flatter myself that I am not justly to blame 
for it. I certainly know that, if the war fails, the administration 



442 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

fails, and that I will be blamed for it, whether I deserve it or 
not. And I ought to be blamed, if I could do better. You think 
I could do better ; therefore you blame me already. I think I 
could not do better ; therefore I blame you for blaming me. I 
understand you now to be willing to accept the help of men who 
are not Republicans, provided they have " heart in it." Agreed. 
I want no others. But who is to be the judge of hearts, or of 
" heart in it"? If I must discard my own judgment and take 
yours, I must also take that of others ; and by the time I should 
reject all I should be advised to reject, I should have none left, 
Republicans or others, — not even yourself. For be assured, my 
dear sir, there are men who have " heart in it " that think you are 
performing your part as poorly as you think I am performing mine. 

In these two letters which I have quoted lie great les- 
sons. There is not a man to-day whose judgment would 
be of any value, who does not know that Lincoln, in these 
instances, was absolutely right, and his critics hopelessly 
and ignorantly wrong. They teach us that a great execu- 
tive officer, dealing with the most momentous problems, 
cannot do everything at once ; that he must subordinate 
the lesser to the greater if he would not fail entirely; that 
he must do the best he can, and not lose all by striving 
vainly for the ideally best. He must steer, also, between 
the radical extremists on the one side and the reactionary 
extremists on the other, — no easy task, and one which 
Lincoln performed with a perfection rarely seen among 
men. Lincoln could have said, with absolute truth, as 
Seneca's Pilot says, in Montaigne's paraphrase : — 

Oh, Neptune, thou mayest save me if thou wilt ; thou mayest 
sink me if thou wilt ; but whatever may befall I shall hold my 
tiller true. 

As we look at this correspondence and see how Lincoln 
was criticised by able men on a point where the judgment 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 443 

of events and of history alike has gone wholly in his favor, 
is it not well for us, before passing hasty judgment and 
indulging in quick condemnation, to reflect that the men 
charged with great public duties may have a knowledge of 
conditions and possess sources of information which are not 
known to the world, or even to those who criticise? Both 
for men in public life, and for those who criticise these 
men, I think this correspondence contains many lessons in 
conduct and character which, if taken to heart, will make 
the public service better and the judgment of the onlooker 
less hasty. 

This thought and the admonition which these glimpses 
of the past bring to us have been put into noble verse by a 
poet ^ of our own day, and it is to the poet that we must 
always turn for the best expression of what we try to say 
with the faltering words of prose. 

A flying word from here and there, 

Had sown the name at which we sneered, 
But soon the name was everywhere, 

To be reviled and then revered : 
A presence to be loved and feared, 

We cannot hide it or deny 
That we, the gentlemen who jeered, 

May be forgotten by and by. 

Consider, also, the result. Lincoln's paramount pur- 
pose was to save the Union, and he saved it. His critics 
thought he was sacrificing the anti-slavery cause. He 
thought otherwise, and he was right. At the accepted 
time he emancipated the slaves and signed the death war- 
rant of human slavery. Had he struck at the wrong mo- 
ment he might have ruined the Union cause and thereby 
left the slaves in bondage. He was a great statesman, 
1 Edwin Arlington Robinson. 



444 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

and he knew all the conditions, not merely a part of them. 
He therefore succeeded where his critics would have failed. 
Turn now from the difficulties and the criticisms with 
which Lincoln contended upon his own side, and which 
surrounded him like a network, through which he had to 
cut or break his way as best he might, and look with me 
for a moment at the force with which he was doing battle, 
and see whether we can also find a lesson there. Lin- 
coln's purpose was to save the Union ; the object of those j 
with whom he fought was to destroy it. I am not going ' 
to waste time upon that emptiest of all questions, whether 
the states had the right, under the Constitution, to secede. ' 
The purpose of the Constitution, if it had meaning or pur- 
pose, was to make a nation out of jarring states, and that 
it had succeeded in doing so was stated by Webster, once 
and for all, when he replied to Hayne in the greatest 
speech ever made in the Senate. Secession was the de- j 
struction of the Union, whether the Constitution provided 
for such a contradiction as the right of secession or not. < 
Secession was revolution, and revolution is not to be 
stopped or to be provided for by paper constitutions. | 
This particular revolution, however, found its reason and j 
its excuse in the doctrine of state rights. Under cover 
of maintaining the rights of states the Union was to be 
destroyed. On this issue the war was fought out. The 
Union was victorious, and the rights of states emerged 
from the conflict beaten and discredited. The result ^ 
brought with it a new danger in the direction of a dis- 
proportionate growth in the power of the central govern- 
ment, and this peril the fanatics of state rights, and no 
one else, had brought upon themselves and upon the 
country. In the first public speech which I ever delivered, 
some thirty years ago, alas, I said : — 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 445 

. . . The principle of state rights is as vital and essential as 
the national principle itself. If the former, carried to extremes, 
means anarchy, the latter, carried to like extremes, means cen- 
tralization and despotism. . . . 

Two lessons are clearly written on the pages which record the 
strife between the inborn love of local independence and the 
broader spirit of nationality created by the Constitution. One 
is reverence for the Constitution ; the other, a careful mainte- 
nance of the principle of state rights. 

To these general views I have always adhered, and I 
repeat them now because 1 do not wish to be misunder- 
stood in what I am about to say in regard to state rights 
at the present time. The subject is one of deep impor- 
tance and ought never to be neglected. The growth in 
power of the central government is inevitable, because it 
goes hand in hand with the growth of the country. There 
is no danger that this movement will be too slow ; there is 
danger that it will be too rapid and too extensive. The 
strength of our American system resides in the fact that 
we have a Union of states, that we are neither a weak 
and chaotic confederation, nor one highly centralized gov- 
ernment. It is of the highest importance that the states 
should be maintained in all their proper rights and the 
Constitution scrupulously observed ; but when the Consti- 
tution is thrust forward every day, on every occasion, 
serious and trivial alike, whether applicable or inapplica- 
ble, and for mere purposes of obstruction, the government 
of the Union is not injured, but the Constitution is brought 
into contempt, and the profound respect which we all 
should feel for that great instrument is impaired. In the 
same way the rights of the states, the true rights, are 
again in danger at this time, not from those who would 
trench upon them, but from those who abuse them, as did 



446 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

the advocates of secession. Nothing can accelerate the 
growth of the national power to an unwholesome degree 
so much as the failure of the states, from local or selfish 
motives, to do their part in the promotion of measures 
which the good of the whole people, without respect to 
state lines, demands. No such reproach, so far as I am 
aware, lies at the door of Massachusetts. The President 
of the United States has said, not once but many times, 
that if every state had adopted corporation and railroad 
laws like those of Massachusetts, there would have been 
no need of much of that national railroad legislation which 
he has advised and which has been largely enacted. He 
has also said, in regard to our laws relating to health, 
that if every state had the same system, there would have 
been but little need of the pure food act. There are 
other states which have a record like that of Massachu- 
setts in these directions, but there are many which have 
not. The result of this neglect, and of local selfishness, 
has been national legislation and a great extension of the 
national power, brought on directly either by the failure 
of the states to act, or by thrusting state interests and 
state rights across the path of progress. 

Take another and far more serious phase of this same 
question. We can deal with foreign nations only through 
the United States. By the Constitution a treaty is the 
supreme law of the land. No state can make a treaty, 
and yet a treaty is worthless if any state in the Union 
can disregard it at pleasure. The people of the United 
States will not long suffer their foreign relations to be im- 
periled, or permit the peace of the country to be put in 
jeopardy, because some one state does not choose to sub- 
mit to the action of the general government in a matter with 
which the general government alone can deal. They will 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 447 

not permit a legislature or a city council to disregard 
treaties and endanirer our relations with other countries. 
Those who force state rights into our foreign relations 
will eventually bring on a situation from which those 
rights will emerge as broken and discredited as they did 
from the Civil War. They were the enemy, powerful in 
their influence upon the minds of men, with which Lin- 
coln grappled, and which he finally overthrew\ The 
danger to the rights of states does not arise now, any 
more than it did in 1861, from the incursions of the na- 
tional government, but from the follies of those who try 
to use them as a cover for resistance to the general gov- 
ernment in the execution of the duties committed to it. 
Congress alone can declare war. The President and the 
Senate alone can make peace. It is not to be tolerated 
that one or two states shall assert the power to force the 
country into war to gratify their own prejudices. Their 
rights will be protected by the general government sedu- 
lously and fearlessly, but if they venture to usurp or to 
deride the national authority they will be forced to yield 
to the power of the Union, and the state rights which 
they have wrongly invoked, and their indifference to the 
interests of the nation, will meet the punishment they de- 
serve. The day has passed when one state, or a few 
states, could interfere with the government of the Union 
in its own field. Lincoln smote down that baleful theory 
when he crushed secession and saved the Union. But if 
we are wise, it is to the states themselves that we ought to 
look for the preservation of the rights of the states, which 
are so essential to our system of government, and the 
states can preserve their rights only by doing their duty 
individually in regard to measures with which the welfare 
of the people of all the states is bound up, and by not 



448 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

seeking to thwart the general government in the perform- 
ance of the high functions intrusted to it by the Consti- 
tution. If the advocates of the extreme doctrines of state 
rights use them, not for the protection of local self-govern- 
ment, but to promote selfish interests hostile to the gen- 
eral welfare, or still more to embarrass and paralyze the 
national government in the performance of the duties for 
which it was created, the people will not endure it, and 
state rights will be unduly weakened if not swept away, 
— a result greatly to be deplored. 

In the Civil War the fighting champions of state rights 
bound them up with the cause of slavery, which was not 
only an evil and a wrong, but which was a gross anachro- 
nism, — a stumbling-block to the onward march of the Re- 
public. They and their allies, the copperheads, the South- 
ern sympathizers, and the timid commercialism of the 
North, proclaimed that they were conservatives, and de- 
nounced Lincoln as a revolutionist. " Radical," " black 
Republican," " tyrant," were among the mildest of the 
epithets they heaped upon him. Yet the reality was the 
exact reverse of this. Lincoln was the true conservative, 
and he gave his life to preserve and construct, not to 
change and destroy. 

The men who sought to rend the Union asunder in 
order to shelter slavery beneath state rights, the reaction- 
aries who set themselves against the march of human lib- 
erty, were the real revolutionists. Lincoln's policy was to 
secure progress and right by the limitation and extinction 
of slavery, but his mission was to preserve and maintain 
the Union. He sought to save and to create, not to de- 
stroy; and yet he wrought at the same time the greatest 
reform ever accomplished in the history of the nation. 
Let us learn from him that reaction is not conservatism, and 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 449 

that violent change and the abandonment of the traditions 
and the principles which have made us great is not pro- 
gress, but revolution and confusion. 

One word upon one other text and I have done. In 
August, 1864, Lincoln one morning asked his Cabinet to 
sign their names on the back of a sealed and folded paper. 
After the election, in the following November, he opened 
the paper in the presence of his Cabinet, and these words 
were found written therein : — 

ExECOTivE Mansion, 
Washington, D. C, Aug. 23, 1864. 

This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly 

probable that this administration will not be reelected. Then it 

will be my duty to so cooperate with the President elect as to 

save the Union between the election and the inauguration, as he 

will have secured his election on such ground that he cannot 

possibly save it afterward. 

A. Lincoln. 

Was there ever a nobler patriotism shown by any man 
than is contained in those few lines? What utter forget- 
fulness of self, what devotion to the country do they re- 
veal ! Then, as at the beginning, we see him driving 
straight forward to his one mighty purpose, — the salvation 
of the Union. No criticism, no personal or party defeat, 
nothing could change that great intent. There, indeed, is 
a lesson to be learned and to be repeated from day to 
day. We none of us can be an Abraham Lincoln, but we 
all can try to follow in his footsteps. If we do so the 
country will rise to ever new heights, as he would fain 
have had it. 

That nation has not lived in vain which has given to 
the world Washington and Lincoln, the best great men 
and the greatest good men whom history can show. But 



450 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

if we content ourselves with eulogy and neglect the teach- 
ing of their lives, we are unworthy of the heritage they 
have left us. To us they offer lofty ideals, to which we 
may not, perhaps cannot, attain, but it is only by aiming 
at ideals which are never reached that the great victories 
on earth are won. Yet when all is said, it is not Lincoln's 
patient wisdom, his uudaunted courage, his large abilities 
that should really sink deepest into our hearts and minds 
to-day. Touch, if you can, as he touched, the "mystic 
chords of memory." Think of that noble character, that 
unwearied devotion to his country, that gentle heart which 
went out in sympathy to all his people. No one can re- 
call all this and not feel that he is lifted up and made 
better. Remember him as he lay dying, having offered 
up the last great sacrifice on the altar of his country. 
Then, indeed, you feel his greatness, and you cry out, in 
the words of Bunyan : — 

So Valiant-for-Truth passed over, and all the trumpets sounded 
for him on the other side. 



NEW ENGLAND AND THE TARIFF. 

FROM A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE SENATE, 
JUNE 19, 1909. 



NEW ENGLAND AND THE TARIFF. 



Mr. Lodge. Mr. President, I desire to close, and I 
have a few words, not directly connected with the duty on 
hides, which I wish to say before I take my seat. 

To the best of my ability I have tried to state the case 
for these great leather industries, which extend into almost 
every part of the Union, and which are so important, not 
only to those engaged in them, but to the great body of 
the American people who use and consume their product. 
Yet, despite the fact of the wide dispersion of these in- 
dustries, I am fully aware that to my part of the country, 
and particularly to jny own state, they are of especial mo- 
ment. It would be hypocrisy to say that I am not influ- 
enced by the interests of my state and of New England. 
I not only am, but I should be unworthy to sit here if I 
were not profoundly interested in all that concerns the 
welfare of Massachusetts. I may add that I have not ob- 
served, in an experience of five tariff revisions, that any 
Representative or Senator was insensible to the wishes 
and hopes of his own state. Each one of us endeavors 
to do all that he possibly and honestly can for the inter- 
ests of the people whom he immediately represents. He 
would be unfit for his trust if he did not do so. At the 
same time I have endeavored in all my dealings with the 
tariff to give to every part of the country the same con- 
sideration which I demanded for my own. In every tariff 



454 NEW ENGLAND AND THE TARIFF. 

bill for wliich I have voted, and in tliis bill, for which 
I intend to vote, there are many items which I should 
oppose if I were willing to govern myself solely by local or 
selfish motives ; but I have always felt that if we were to 
have protection it must be given to every industry which 
could show a fair title to encouragement, and that if we 
were to have a free-trade tariff it must be free trade for 
everybody. In that specious and elastic formula of a 
" tariff for revenue only," which in essence means the pro- 
tection you want for your own industry and free trade 
for your neighbor whose products you buy, I have neither 
belief nor sympathy. The one tariff which is certainly 
wrong and bad is the tariff which gives free trade to one 
man and protection to another, when both are equally en- 
titled either to protection or to free trade. Therefore, Mr. 
President, in view of my consistent attitude on this ques- 
tion, in view of the many votes which I have given and 
which I shall shortly give on tariff questions, I think I 
may say that, although I am wedded to the interests of 
my state, I endeavor not to be unduly biased by them 
to the injury of any other state. I certainly am not so 
biased in the position I have taken in regard to hides, as 
I have repeatedly said. 

In the course of the discussion aroused by this revision 
of the tariff, a good deal has been said about New Eng- 
land ; some attacks have been made upon that portion of 
our common country, and it has been charged that she has 
had an undue influence in tariff legislation. The rule of 
seniority has always been wisely and pretty strictly ap- 
plied in the Senate of the United States, and if of the 
seven senators longest in the service five are from New 
England, that is merely an evidence of her good fortune, 
to which all other sections of the country can attain if 



NEW ENGLAND AND THE TARIFF. 455 

they follow her example. I am proud to say that New 
England has always had a large influence in the legisla- 
tion and the administration of the Government of the 
United States, but that that influence has been undue or 
improper, or has been willfully exercised to the injury of 
any other section of the country, I wholly deny. We of 
New England know that the welfare of California, the 
development of her industries, and the exclusion of Asia- 
tic competition from her coast, are as important to us as 
they are to her, and to all that great and noble region of 
our country. We know that the prosperity of Kansas 
and Nebraska, and of all the great wheat-raising and corn- 
arowins: states of the West, is vital to our own well-being. 
We feel more keenly, perhaps, than any other part of the 
country the importance of steady and widespread prosper- 
ity throughout the South, for on her great staple our large- 
est industry depends. We have long since learned the 
lesson that our own prosperity is indissolubly bound up 
with that of all parts of our common country. All we ask 
is that the same feeling should be returned to us, and 
that our brethren of the other states should realize that 
in the East and in New England they find their best mar- 
ket, their best customers, and a great deal of the capital 
which they need for their own development. Our New 
England States are old in settlement and small in area, 
but voting is done by men and not by acres. We have 
forty-one electoral votes, which could ill be spared either 
by the Republican party or the cause of protection. We 
do not differ in our interests, our population, or our indus- 
tries from the Middle Atlantic States. New York has 
thirty-nine electoral votes, New Jersey has twelve, Penn- 
sylvania has thirty-four, and Delaware has three. It is 
needless to say that west of New York are also great in- 



456 NEW ENGLAND AND THE TARIFF. 

dustrial and manufacturing states reaching to the Mis- 
sissippi and beyond, and presenting large areas made 
prosj)erous by industries vitally concerned in the main- 
tenance of the protective tariif . But to those ten Eastern 
states which I have mentioned, and which are nearly 
identical in interest, I would call especial attention as an 
example. They are old in settlement, I repeat, small in 
area compared to the rest of the country, but they cast 
t^d electoral votes; too large a number to be overlooked, 
too important in deciding the fate of government and 
parties to be lightly accused of undue influence. Nor are 
the Eastern states retrograding in population. At each 
of the last censuses Massachusetts gained a Congress- 
man, and the same is true of Pennsylvania and New 
York. 

Mr. Kean. And New Jersey, also. 

Mr. Lodge. And New Jersey. 

There are a good many states in the Union, and some 
of them much younger than we are, which cannot furnish 
this proof of steady and healthy growth. 

We recognize the enormous debt we owe to the Union 
of states, but I do not think that we have ever shrunk 
from bearing our part of the burdens of the nation. Con- 
cord and Lexington and Bunker Hill are our enduring 
monuments of the Revolution. In the hours of the darkest 
trial Massachusetts sent more than her quota — over one 
hundred and fifty thousand men — into the armies of the 
Union. We had no slaves to leave behind to carry on the 
work of the community, and yet that work went steadily 
forward all through the days of war, although one man 
of military age in every two went to the fi'ont. I do not 
mention this to arrogate to my state any peculiar distinc- 
tion in patriotism, but merely to show that we have always 



NEW ENGLAND AND THE TARIFF. 457 

been ready to do our share and more than our share when 
the country called upon us. Our states of New Eng- 
land are small in area and rich in natural beauty, but 
poor in natural wealth. We have no minerals, no vast 
tracts of fertile land. We have a severe climate, and the 
possibilities of our agriculture are limited by our northern 
temperature. Except for the power of our rivers and the 
forests of Maine, nature has conferred upon us no gifts 
which in themselves mean wealth and ease and prosperity. 
The one thing due to nature, which cannot be taken from 
us by more favored regions, is our seacoast with its harbors. 
From the sea the New England colonies drew their wealth. 
Starting with the fisheries, the New England whalers, 
merchants, and sea captains pushed their commerce and 
bore their flag into every quarter of the globe. The em- 
bargoes, non-intercourse acts, and the war of 1812 fell with 
crushing effect upon New England, and drove her seamen 
from the deck and the wharf to the farm and the factory. 
Despite all this, the tariff of 1816, carried under the lead- 
ership of Calhoun and the brilliant group of men who 
had come into Congress from the South and West before 
the war, found New England still a commercial commu- 
nity, in the main a seafaring people, chiefly dependent on 
foreign trade and adverse to protective duties. Daniel 
Webster spoke against those duties, but the protective 
policy founded by Hamilton was too strong to be resisted, 
and New England adapted herself to the new policies 
which she had not forced upon the country, as she had 
already done to her hard natural conditions, and Webster 
became the great champion of protection. 

In 1828, when the famous tariff bill of that year was 
before the Senate, Mr. Webster made a speech explaining 
his change of position. He said : — 



458 NEW ENGLAND AND THE TARIFF. 

New England, sir, has not been a leader in this policy. On 
the contrary, she held back herself and tried to hold others back 
from it, from the adoption of the Constitution to 1824. Up to 
1824 she was accused of sinister and selfish designs, hecause she 
discou7itenanced the progress of this policy. . . . Under this 
angry denunciation against her the act of 1824 passed. Now 
the imputation is of a precisely opposite character. . . . Both 
charges, sir, are equally without the slightest foundation. The 
opinion of New England up to 1824 was founded in the convic- 
tion that, on the whole, it was wisest and best, both for herself 
and others, that manufactures should make haste slowly. . . . 
When, at the commencement of the late war, duties were doubled, 
we were told that we should find a mitigation of the weight of 
taxation in the new aid and succor which would thus be afforded 
to our own manufacturing labor. Like arguments were urged, 
and prevailed, but not by the aid of New England votes, when 
the tariff was afterwards arranged at the close of the war in 
1816. Finally, after a winter's deliberation, the act of 1824 
received the sanction of both Houses of Congress and settled the 
policy of the country. What, then, was New England to do ? 
Was she to hold out forever against the course of the government, 
and see herself losing on one side, and yet make no effort to 
sustain herself on the other ? No, sir. Nothing was left to New 
England but to conform herself to the will of others. Nothing 
was left to her but to consider that the government had fixed 
and determined its own policy ; and that policy was protection. 
I believe, sir, almost every man from New England who voted 
ao-ainst the law of 1824 declared that if, notwithstanding his 
opposition to that law, it should still pass, there would be no 
alternative but to consider the course and policy of the govern- 
ment as then settled and fixed, and to act accordingly. The 
law did pass ; and a vast increase of investment in manufactur- 
ing establishments was the consequence. 

I can add nothinoj to that lucid statement of the foun- 



NEW ENGLAND AND THE TARIFF. 459 

dation of our protective policy and of the attitude of New 
England in regard to it. 

There was one law and one policy for the whole coun- 
try. Every state could avail itself of it. New England 
made the best of the situation. That was all, and it does 
not become those who declined to take advantage of what 
was common to all to censure New England for doing so. 
That protective policy has continued with fluctuations, but 
always protective down to the present time. The only 
industry to which protection has never been extended is 
that of the shipowner, which was peculiarly a New Eng- 
land interest in the old days, and owing to our refusal to 
protect that industry it has now disappeared from the face 
of the waters. Driven from the ocean, we of New England 
deserve praise, not blame, that we have turned with un- 
diminished courage to a new scene and won prosperity on 
the laud. 

Thus shut out from her natural element, the whole 
energy of New England went into manufactures, and we 
have built up great industries and made populous and 
thriving states. The state I represent in part is, with 
four exceptions, the smallest in the Union. Fifth from 
the bottom of the list in area, we are seventh in popula- 
tion. Fifth from the bottom of the list in area, we are 
first in cotton textiles and in boots and shoes. "We are 
one of the great woolen-making states. In 1905 our 
manufacturing production was over a billion dollars in 
value, and of that billion dollars small industries, with 
capital averaging not over a million dollars, produced in 
the affc^reoate over three hundred millions. With the 
exception of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, 
there is no state which has such a variety of industries. 
Four years ago there were over four hundred and eighty- 



460 NEW ENGLAND AND THE TARIFF. 

eight thousand people employed in our industries, as opera- 
tives, which means, probably, at least a million and a half 
who drew their living directly from the wages paid ; while 
of the remaining million and a half or more of our popu- 
lation, a very large proportion were directly or indirectly 
supported and sustained by the industries of the state. 
We paid out two hundred and seventy-two millions in 
wages and salaries in 1905. The capital invested was 
nine hundred and sixty-five million ; the number of estab- 
lishments nearly eleven thousand ; the value of the stock 
six hundred and twenty million ; and the value of the goods 
one billion one hundred and twenty-four millions. These 
Massachusetts operatives and workingmen and women 
have put over seven hundred millions into the savings 
banks of the state. It is all their money, for the average 
deposit is only $125, and the law prevents a larger de- 
posit than $1000 by any one person. It is their hard- 
earned money which has gone out to help in the building 
of railroads and the construction of public improvements 
in the newer states. 

Do you not think that it is in the common interest of the 
entire Union that the wages of these thrifty, hard-working 
people should be maintained, and that their opportunities 
of emjoloyment should be enlarged and not diminished ? 
In my own lifetime I have seen the city of Lynn at my 
own doors grow from a country town into a thriving city 
of eighty thousand people, built up on this single industry 
of boots and shoes, of which she sends annually millions 
into the markets of the world. I have seen Brockton and 
Haverhill become great centres of the same industry, and 
cities rise where villages stood before. Salem, once the 
home of the East India trade, whose ships clove the waters 
of every sea, deprived of her commerce has found a new 



NEW ENGLAND AND THE TARIFF. 461 

life and a new prosperity in the leather industries, which 
now fill her streets with an active, growing population, 
who rejoice in her traditions, preserve the beautiful old 
houses of her merchants, and hold as consecrated the 
places which were touched and immortalized by the genius 
of Hawthorne. Far from coal and iron mines, Worcester 
has risen to be a great city, and is to-day one of the centres 
of the metal industry. New Bedford, built up by whaling, 
and whose hardy seamen, penetrating in pursuit of their 
prey to the frozen regions of the poles, drew forth the elo- 
quence of Edmund Burke, turned from the sea where a 
harvest could no longer be gathered, and has become one 
of the leaders in making cotton goods. Fall River and 
Lowell and Lawrence are the great exemplars of what 
has been done in cotton and woolen textiles — a vast in- 
dustry whose factories are scattered throughout the state. 
Holyoke and Springfield, strong and prosperous, have 
found their success in making paper ; and I might go on 
with a list of industries which would reach into every 
corner of the state and which, starting with the fishermen 
of Gloucester and Provincetown, would extend to the 
paper makers of Dalton and the cotton spinners of North 
Adams, and would cover in its course almost all the im- 
portant industries in which civilized man engages. I 
should be something worse than insensible if I did not 
feel a great and honest pride in such a record of achieve- 
ment by the people of my state — the state of my birth, 
where I have lived all my life, where my kindred have 
lived before me from 1630 onward, and from which I hope 
never to be separated whether living or dead. 

But I do not speak of these things in order to boast of 
that in which I feel a just pride. I use Massachusetts 
only as an example of New England and the East. We 



462 NEW ENGLAND AND THE TARIFF. 

have won prosperity, and we have won it through no 
chance gifts of Mother Earth, but solely by the brains and 
the energy, the intelligence, courage, tenacity, and edu- 
cation of our people, — the naturalized and the adopted 
as well as the native born. We have not snarled or 
grumbled at the prosperity of any of the other states. We 
have not sought to injure or destroy the success of other 
Americans anywhere. We have rejoiced in it. We have 
been content to do the best we could under the conditions 
imposed by nature and by the legislation of the United 
States, and we have succeeded and achieved a hard-won 
prosperity. Under the economic policies which the Gov- 
ernment of the United States has adopted we have built up 
our industries and added thereby to the capital, the wealth, 
and the prosperity of the whole country. We do not come 
in forma pauperis to sue for favors, or in the guise of rob- 
bers to plunder others for our own benefit. We come to 
the council table of the nation, to whose upbuilding we 
have contributed, with a deep consciousness that there is 
no prosperity worth having which is not part of the na- 
tion's prosperity, and we ask only that we should be dealt 
with according to our merits, and that our great industrial 
population should receive the same treatment and consid- 
eration as that which is accorded to all Americans in all 
parts of the United States. 



CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S . A 








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